


Now and Always

by bluepeony



Category: The Hobbit (2012) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepeony/pseuds/bluepeony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean O'Gorman thought he knew exactly what a life in London would be like. Four years down the line, he realises he's never been more wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Because it's only concrete and cars,_  
 _It's only sirens and missing stars,_  
 _It's only whiskey and disregard_  
 _In the smallest hours here, when I feel alone._

\- Ben Howard, London

 

And then one day you wake up, and you're thirty.

In Camberwell, Dean O'Gorman lies in a bed warmed by the London summer, hands behind his head, covers pooled at his waist. The ceiling medallion is starkly white above him and, as he stares up at it, conscious of there being another hour before his alarm goes off, he thinks to himself... _well then. That's it_.

The tree outside his bedroom window bustles with whistling blackbirds, which reminds him of summer and imminent danger in equal parts. Not the best thing to wake up to, creatures singing of your impending doom on your thirtieth year to heaven. Still, he appreciates the early wake-up call all the same. He needs time to collect his thoughts before the pulsing siren of the alarm clock screams at him to _get the hell out of bed and start the day, up, comrade, up!_ He needs time to himself to reflect on this new phase of life.

After a few moments, Dean peels back the covers and gets up. Reflecting on this new phase of life is too depressing.

The flat is littered with cardboard boxes varying in fullness. He edges sleepily around each one, the bunched-up legs of his sweat pants unravelling as he goes. He bought these pants four years ago, full price at Topman, with preconceived notions of what it was that trendy young bachelors wore to bed. A constant high fibre diet has meant he hasn't gained or lost a pound since, and the pants still fit.

They're a little wrecked now, of course, a little worn and bobbly at the groin, a little stretched at the waistband from Jared's big, over-eager hands. But like the blackbirds, such treasured sweatpants surely symbolise something which is... well, they symbolise _something_.

Dean sits at his breakfast table and plucks at the pants, noticing for the first time a small hole in the seam of the left thigh which will only get bigger. Fuck. That's got to mean something. Maybe he should throw them out.

Or maybe he's looking too much, sticking his spoon in deep and digging for things which aren't really there. After all, he's been thirty for six and a half hours, and so far it's turning out to be surprisingly unremarkable. Weirdly, it's a lot like being twenty-nine, only now he's laden with the knowledge that people will start to raise their eyebrows at his lack of wedding ring/child/mortgage/sense of satisfaction regarding life in general.

After twenty-nine, a lack of stability ceases to beckon fondness and understanding. You are no longer Jack the lad. You are no longer endearing. You are “that lonely bloke in the flat upstairs, I think I sometimes hear him talking to himself”. You are the eponymous Single Man.

Jesus started his ministry when he was thirty, Dean thinks with a shred of hope. But for him it was all downhill from there. Dean considers the idea of being dead in three years. He finds he doesn't like it very much. Then he thinks, why? What will he be doing three years from now otherwise? Probably sitting at this breakfast table, poking at the hole in his pants.

So he'll throw the pants out. That's one small step towards changing his future.

There's a clutch of birthday cards jammed into the letter rack on the table. He fishes them out. They're from his family, all of them, except the postcard from the Tesco Opticians he hasn't been to in three years (“Happy Birthday, Dean O'Gorman! Have you tried Tesco's new range of Proclear lenses yet? Pop in store today for your free appointment!”).

There's a huge lilac envelope from his mother. He opens it and a sprinkle of glitter and fifty New Zealand dollars falls out. The card has a teddy bear on the front, sitting on a swing, looking remarkably pensive. 'To a Special Son', it says, and inside she's written: _To Dean, happy birthday, love Mum and Dad_.

Three kisses, no y on the end of his name, no P.S. to tell him Auckland misses him _so_ much. Brett's card is a little more inventive; 'Brothers are true gifts from God!', it says on the front. Then, inside: 'So I didn't need to get you a present'.

There are no presents from anyone else either. Not that Dean cares. Honestly. He's going out and getting royally hammered tonight, and that'll be enough of a gift. He opens the rest of the cards and scoops them all up and stands them on the mantel piece one by one, then stares at them for twenty minutes, drumming his fingers against his knees. He'd sort of hoped there might be one from Jared – nothing romantic, just an acknowledgement to say _hey, I shared your home for six years and have seen you in every compromising position imaginable. Once, in the company of a waiter at Nando's, I referred to you as my boyfriend. Happy birthday!_

But when the post comes again at ten, all that falls through Dean's letterbox is an ad for Ali's Spicy Chicken Pizzas.

By this point, London is starting to wake up properly. Dean peels off his clothes and showers under a spray of lukewarm morning water, then rifles through the boxes in his room to find his best jeans. He's been in the flat almost a month now and still it shows little signs of ever being bereft of cardboard boxes. And his reasons for not yet unpacking? Merely a result of the age-old cliché: unpacking signifies permanence.

 

 

-

He's having breakfast out with Adam. Having breakfast out isn't a birthday tradition. In fact, regularly having breakfast out is one of the things Dean fantasised about himself doing once he moved to London. It seemed exactly the type of kitschy, new-age thing city boys did with their young, attractive friends, along with drinking hot cider in cobbled-street pubs, licking tequila out of gorgeous mouths, taking goofy pictures in photo booths, engaging in light-hearted shoplifting, trying veganism, trying tantra, sitting on a sun-drenched windowsill reading Huxley, making droll, ironic comments at wine parties with stunning friends, and doing everything Hugh Grant has done in a film, ever.

The only one Dean actually committed himself to once he got to London was regularly having breakfast out. Still, it's not the worst he could have picked. After all, it's one of the only ones which involves food and, as he's getting older, Dean is beginning to realise that great food is one of few comforts remaining in his life.

Well, great food and Adam. They've been best friends ever since becoming neighbours four years ago, when Dean moved to London with Jared and Adam was still a bachelor waiting to get snapped up. What was true then and is still true now is that Adam has a job as a window dresser in a department store in Brixton, and is adamant that he never wants to do anything else. He has the same haircut, the same gaudy taste in clothes, and the same sense of absolute contentment that everything in his life has turned out A-ok.

“Oh Dean, I do like those jeans, they make your bum look _lovely._ ”

That's Adam's way of saying good morning. They're meeting in Camberwell's Burnt Toast Cafe, which is every bit as uninspiring as it sounds. A dull, glass-windowed square of a building set amongst a parade of identical brothers, serving up platters of questionable-looking full English breakfasts. Adam's already ordered two. That sends the high fibre diet out the window, but nevermind; Dean's throwing the sweat pants out.

“Happy birthday!” Adam cries, tossing skinny arms around Dean. “God, look at you. Thirty!”

“Yeah, tell the whole world, Adam.”

'The whole world' being Burnt Toast's mug-faced waitress and the old Labrador snuffling behind the counter.

“So what then?” says Adam, sitting himself down at their table. “Got any nice presents?”

“Fifty dollars I'll have to convert myself, which'll no doubt go on the chip in my windscreen. Might even splash out on a new safety gas lighter, mine's run out.”

“I see the big three-oh hasn't made you any more cheerful.”

“Well, would you be? It's depressing, man.”

“Oh I can't wait to be thirty,” says Adam. “It's such a romantic age. Very Byronic, don't you think, very raunchy? Like, you wake up and you're thirty and you realise you need to _be a man_ , you need to go out there and get what you want.” Adam balls his tiny hands into fists and gives them a vigorous shake.

The only person who is more of an idealist than Dean O'Gorman is Adam Brown. He seems genuinely to believe his life, simple and happy as it is, is a Jennifer Aniston blockbuster, complete with grouchy best friend, peculiarly gorgeous home, and tall, dishy fiancé. Graham is an insurance broker and the light of Adam's life. He can barely go two seconds without mentioning –

“Graham sends his love and birthday wishes, by the way. Have you, ah...”

Dean looks up. “What?”

“Have you heard from Jared?”

“Yeah, he sent over an assorted bouquet with his phone number attached to the tag.”

Adam squeaks. “Really?”

“No, not really, you twonk. I haven't heard from him in two months, not since he asked me to air mail his bloody memory foam pillow to him.”

Adam's brows knit in confusion. “Didn't you stab that pillow?”

“Yes! Twenty pounds a new one cost me. Always make sure you wait at least six months before drunkenly mauling an ex's possessions.”

Which is a stupid thing to say really, because the day Adam and Graham split up will be the day Dean finds Apples of the Hesperides on his doorstep.

“I'm sorry, Dean, I shouldn't have brought him up,” says Adam meekly.

Dean looks at him and immediately feels awful. Adam's _such_ a sweetheart, and there's really no good reason for Dean's bad mood, so why is he being so stroppy and sarcastic? It's his birthday, for goodness' sake, not to mention a Saturday. He should at least reserve the sulks for work.

“The only reason I did,” Adam goes on, brightening, “is because I have exciting news!”

“Oh?”

“And you're not to take it the wrong way, alright? This is all for you, for your benefit and happiness, and not in any way intended as an insult to your current state of being. Right?”

“...Right.”

Adam takes a deep breath. He's got _that look_ on his face, the one he gets before the winner's announced on Britain's Got Talent.

“You know the engagement party's in a week,” he says.

“I do.”

“And you know it's going to be classy. Catering service, black tie, very respectable.”

“Of course.”

“And you know on those gilt party invitations I spent weeks painstakingly designing it says 'Dean O'Gorman plus guest'...?”

“Oh, Adam –”

“Well _I_ thought –”

“Adam, no!”

“Graham knows this really lovely bloke from his work, and he's definitely single, and I thought I'd save you the trouble of finding a guest and set the two of you up on a bit of a blind date!” Adam rests his chin in his hands, eyes sparkling.

Dean says, “Why would you consider that a good idea?”

Their food arrives, and Adam tucks a paper napkin into his shirt, stabs his fork into a more-yolk-than-white fried egg and begins to eat merrily.

“Look,” he says, chewing, “I know you're a little hesitant because the last time I set you up with someone it was only a month after Jared left and you ended up crying into your mixed tandoori –”

“I did not cry! He took me to Spicy Kitchen, I _told_ you, I got hot sauce in my eye.”

“But that was a long time ago now, and I want you to be happy,” Adam goes on, ignoring him. “And this fella's going to be there at the party regardless. You'd have met him anyway, and you might have ended up liking him. This way I'm just sort of... making it clear you're both up for it. You know, speeding the process along.”

“Adam, I don't need it speeding along! I need it slowing down, it's _way_ too soon.”

Adam looks at him, big eyes shining with forced sympathy, like a babysitter might peer at a crying child.

“I know it's been six months,” he says gently, “but really, it's been a year.”

Dean looks up from his plate in confusion. “No, you were right the first time. Six months. He left three days before Christmas.”

“Yes, but the last six months of your relationship with him weren't exactly normal, were they?”

“What's that supposed to mean? They were perfectly normal.”

“Dean, you barely even talked to each other! You were literally two men living separate lives in the same flat. In fact, you spent more time in my flat than you did your own.”

“Well, _sorry_.”

“Oh please, I'm not saying I minded. Look, I love spending time with my friends, but at the end of each day I look forward to going home and spending quality time with Graham. You two just went home at night and argued.”

“We did not argue.”

“The walls were paper thin in those apartments. Believe me, you argued. You never had proper conversations, and you literally _never_ had sex –”

“We had sex!” Dean says indignantly. Adam quirks an eyebrow. Dean splutters. “We did! All the time!”

“How often?”

“Like...” Dean flounders. “All the time, okay? Every two – th – three weeks?”

Adam stares at him.

“Every two weeks?” Dean tries.

A blink.

“A week?” Dean sighs, stabbing his fork into a curling piece of bacon. “Look, I didn't keep a goddamned journal. Alright then, Don Juan, how often do you and Graham do it?”

Adam shrugs, chewing heartily. “Dunno. Four, five times a week? Depends.”

“ _Five times a week_? Where do you even find time to fuck five times a week?”

Dean glances round just in time to see the waitress throw him a funny look.

“We make time, that's the point,” Adam says primly.

“Yeah well, that'll go out the window once you two get married,” Dean tells him, gesturing with his fork. “When you first live together it's all about passion and shower sex and not caring that there's no milk for the tea because you have each other. Yeah, that'll all fade. Soon you'll start to care that there's no milk, Adam. You'll care.”

The look Adam gives him is so full of _pity_ that Dean shrinks back into his chair with a sigh.

“I'm sorry. I'm not trying to bring you down.”

“Well, you're doing a pretty lousy job of not trying,” says Adam, but he's smiling all the same. “Listen, I just want you to give this one bloke a go. Please? For me? It _is_ my party, after all.”

Dean wants to say _it's my love life_ , but he's thirty years old now and a phrase like that seems just a little too teen Hollywood circa. 1995.

He sighs again. “What does this guy do?”

Adam squeaks in pleasure. “Right well, like I said, he works with Graham.”

“Negotiating insurance,” Dean nods. “Riveting.”

“Oh come on, Dean, he's really nice!”

“What's his name?”

“Ah, Rick – Richard.”

Dean narrows his eyes. “What else can you tell me about him?”

“Well, you know.” Adam waves a vague hand. “He's well-off, drives a nice car, wears a nice suit –”

“You've never actually met him, have you?”

Adam splutters, like he's offended. “I've – Graham says he's a really great guy. He says he's really handsome.”

“Mate, I've been questioning Graham's judgement for the last three years.”

“Don't be such a sourpuss. Graham wouldn't suggest him if he wasn't absolutely sure he's a decent guy. He wants the best for you just like me. Consider it something of a birthday present, quite aside from what we've got planned for you tonight.”

“Is it a novelty stripper?” asks Dean. “It's a novelty stripper, isn't it?”

“Don't be ridiculous, it's your thirtieth, I'm not going to get you something as tacky as a bloody stripper.”

“You got me a nine foot party sandwich from Subway last year.”

“It was your twenty-ninth, hardly a big deal.”

“Technically, it should be a bigger deal than thirty, since twenty-nine denotes your last year of freedom and feeling good about yourself. You should've let me enjoy it. Should've got me a state of the art vibrator or something.”

“Well you were having _so much great sex_ , I didn't see the point.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Hilarious.”

“Mm, aren't I just?” says Adam, shovelling a forkful of breakfast into his mouth.

-

Birthday bar hopping that night is a mistake. Dean comes home at three, throws up twice in the toilet and falls asleep on the bathroom floor. It might have been funny, once.


	2. Chapter 2

On the morning of Adam's engagement party, Dean decides he's going to completely revamp his image. It's a change which has been due for a while really, partly because he's convinced his current image is somehow hindering his life's progress. There must be _some_ reason his life is spiralling out of control.

As far as he can tell it's nothing to do with his job – which pays fairly enough – or the people he chooses to socialise with. He doesn't eat badly or too often drink himself sick, doesn't have questionable friends from illicit drug circles (though he and Adam shared a spliff two years ago on a balcony in Tenerife and Adam ended up vomiting into one of the hotel's artificial desert plants).

He's nice to his friends and civil to clients at work; he never misses a birthday; he spends a fortune calling his mother once a week, and he's resolved that if he ever gets a pet he'll get it from the RSPCA. He buys Big Issues out of pity and he gives to the Red Cross and he gives change to beggars and he gives people the time of day when he doesn't really have it, and he gives and gives and gives and asks for nothing back, so why? Why this shoddy flat in shady London, this constant reminder of humiliation over the Ghost of Relationships Past? Why this total dissatisfaction with _life_ and all it has to offer?

Must be the hair, he thinks, staring into the bathroom mirror. He runs a hand through the lank, unwashed scruff, stained dark with summer morning sweat. Adam says a haircut makes all the difference in the world. Dean takes a shower and then grabs his trimmer and ends up shorning half his left eyebrow off by accident.

That accomplished, he traipses into the bedroom to find clothes. Black Tie, Adam's gold-leaf invites specified. Forget that. Dean's well aware of the fact that he's the only one of his friends who never quite made it over 6ft, and a bowtie certainly doesn't help matters in the illusion department. Besides, he's almost certain no one else but Adam will be wearing one, and that's because Adam wears bow ties _on a regular basis_.

He pulls out a white shirt and black pants and a thin blazer which isn't really a blazer and is more one of those slim fashion jackets which rolls to the elbows. It is, all the fashion experts say, cool and immensely trendy. Yes, he shall be Cool and Trendy. He shall be the cool, trendy young bachelor at his best friend's engagement party, nonchalantly bringing a rich bloke along on a date.

He pulls on the clothes and looks in the mirror. He looks like a single-browed man-child off to a funeral.

Still, Dean doesn't know why he's agonizing over this. The guy will probably be very weird. Adam's last blind date contestant was. Harry, the hot sauce hottie. He had a shaved head exposing a gruesome landscape of acne, and spent most of the evening – when he wasn't rubbing his Reeboks along Dean's calf beneath the table – quoting B movies from the bargain basket at Tesco.

So Dean doesn't hold out much hope for Richard the Insurance Broker. Naturally.

He's coming to Dean's flat for some reason. That reason being Adam and his big gob. It's not like Dean's ashamed of his flat – no, no, it's a great flat, it has windows and electricity and everything – but he's slightly concerned that this man might be a psychopath and, if that is the case, he now has Dean's home address.

As Dean sits waiting at the table, drumming his fingers, he realises how sad that is - at thirty years old, this is what his standards have boiled down to: please don't let him be a psychopath.

The bell rings several minutes later, and Dean gets up and answers the door, and dear God, the man is so beautiful Dean almost slams the door in his face again out of disbelief.

“Hello... Dean?”

Dean actually _flinches_. He can feel himself do it, feel the area where part of his eyebrow used to be tingle as he squints.

“You must be Richard,” he says, meaning _you_ _ **must**_ _be Richard, you_ _ **have**_ _to be Richard, I won't let you_ _ **be**_ _anyone other than Richard_.

“That's right,” and Richard smiles, shyly, and shuffles black-patent feet on the doorstep. “I was worried I'd got the wrong flat. Wasn't sure if it was upstairs or down.”

“Upstairs,” says Dean, “definitely upstairs! Wouldn't wanna knock on the flat downstairs, a mad lollipop man lives there with his pit bull. Which isn't ideal, you know, but hey – Camberwell!”

Which is definitely up there in the list of most unfortunate ways to introduce your home to a handsome man, really.

“Would you like to come in?”

Richard's gaze drops as he steps over the threshold, looking for all the world as though he's selling his soul to a madman. He hesitates, clearing his throat.

“Is this – is this alright?” he says.

“Is what alright?” asks Dean.

“Me being here? I thought it might be a bit intrusive, but Adam insisted I come.”

“Yeah, he does that, doesn't he? It's absolutely fine, Richard.”

“Only I didn't have your number to call and ask.”

“It's fine! Really! I'm just sorry the flat's a bit of a tip. I moved in recently and I haven't really gotten around to unpacking properly yet, so it's a bit...”

He trails off, letting Richard see for himself. There's a sofa and a TV surrounded by precarious stacks of DVDs, a breakfast table littered with junk mail, bare walls, no curtains in the lounge, no rugs on the floor. Boxes everywhere, enough to build a small village. Most of them overflowing with junk. Dean spots an incriminating plush dinosaur he hasn't gotten around to throwing out yet (Waitakere Carnival with Jared, 2010) and immediately wants to kick himself.

See, Dean hasn't bothered clearing up much since he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be making any effort to impress this blind date. That was his first mistake. Second mistake was the Camberwell comment. Third mistake is stumbling blindly over his own feet going into the kitchen to make them tea.

They sit and drink it at the breakfast table, and Richard drops in a sugar cube with lovely, long fingers, and looks painfully handsome and nervous and doesn't say much at first.

“So...” Dean begins, tapping tentative nails on porcelain. “You work with Graham?”

“We share office space, though he has considerably more experience than me. What do you do?”

“I work in Health and Safety,” Dean replies, knowing as he says it how much of a trigger it is for people's brains to switch off and stop listening. Still, Richard does something as tedious as negotiating insurance. Maybe they can bond. Dean goes for his usual stock joke: “I'm the guy who tells hopeful architects they can't build their dream home.”

“Ah, so _that_ was you.”

Dean laughs. “You've tried?” he asks, and Richard shrugs modestly.

“Once, a long time ago. Then I gave it up as a pipe dream and settled down in a house someone else laboured over instead.”

“Where is it you live?”

Richard looks a little uncomfortable by the question, and Dean immediately wants to slap himself. He's only ever dated New Zealanders, and New Zealanders have a habit of not really caring what anyone asks them. He forgets, sometimes, that Brits – and particularly the English – have funny ideas about what constitutes rude.

“I live, ah... up towards Notting Hill.”

“Oh wow!” Dean blurts out, suspecting very much that 'up towards' means 'in the centre of'. Notting Hill is pretty incredible, though how Richard can afford such a place on an insurance broker's wage is beyond him.

“The house has been in my mother's family for some time,” says Richard, answering the question for him. “Truth be told, it's a bit of a handful for just me. I'd much prefer somewhere... cosy like this.”

Which is a nice way of pretending Dean's flat isn't a complete hovel. Dean's unsure whether or not the kind attempt makes him feel good. He's always sort of valued honesty.

“You know, I studied Architecture at university,” he says, sensing a common interest and latching on to it. “It's my dream to build my own house some day.”

“From scratch?”

“I used to think so, only now I've watched so many episodes of Grand Designs I'm beginning to think it's not worth it. Maybe a nice barn conversion or something. Or converting an old church, I'd _love_ to do that. Though speaking as a Health and Safety consultant I can say it's harder to get the planning permission than it is to build the bloody thing.”

Richard laughs at that. His voice is like nothing Dean has ever heard a mortal man possess, magnificently deep but also strangely smooth like some lush chocolate river, straight from a Roald Dahl book. And his eyes are _so_ blue and he's got this hard, hard jawline. Dean's always viewed hard, hard jawlines as some kind of accomplishment. In fact, by Dean's standards, Richard is turning out to be something of an over-achiever.

They finish the tea and Dean puts the cups in the sink, and on the way out Richard holds the door for him and says “after you”. Dean doesn't think anyone's said “after you” to him since he was seventeen and a bellhop mistook him for a girl.

 

 

 

-

Adam and Graham's house in Fulham is a Victorian semi with eight sash windows on the front and a light blue door. It's that weird mix of old and new that every London man and his fuck-off rich dog is fond of these days; preserving the charming exterior but ripping out all the internal organs and recreating something which is a cross between Fulham Palace and Patrick Bateman's apartment.

There's a huge open-plan kitchen, complete with slanting paste white ceiling and sun roof, spotlights and stainless steel. But the floors are comprised of stripped wood, and there's this big old country dining table, and Dean can never decide if it looks good or just throws him a little off-kilter.

Then there's the lounge. Stark white walls and laminated flooring but a fully restored Victorian fireplace, half a dozen oil paintings and a walnut settee. They're in there now, sipping pretty Pimm's and trying to admire Adam's titanium diamond and blue engagement ring in a manner both manly and customary. Dean's seen it a thousand times already. He's heard the way Graham proposed a thousand times more (helping Adam out from a Venetian gondola, suddenly dropping to one knee on the board walk under the gaze of a dozen Italians who were probably English tourists, telling Adam he's the light of his life, lots of pasta, lots of sex, etc. etc. etc.)

Adam's holding his Corgi Lloyd, the puppy he and Graham have in place of a child, as he chats excitedly. They're standing with Adam's window-dressing mate Debbie and her husband Carl, and for the first time Dean is actually grateful for the blind date. Looking around, he sees everyone here is in a _couple_ , and the thought of being solitary at his best friend's engagement do is a lot scarier in retrospect.

Richard, bless him, is making such an effort to look immensely interested in Adam telling him the exact size and weight of the ring that he can't get a word in edgeways. But then Debbie says something profound (“I love the blue bits!”) and Richard turns to Dean with a smile, gaze shyly skimming over him, and says, “Dean, I don't think I got a chance to tell you how nice you –”

Graham bounds over at the last second and claps Richard on the shoulder, cutting him off.

“There's my man!” Graham beams, as though they've been friends for years. Hell, maybe they have.

Richard turns and they wrap each other up in a matey-matey hug, and suddenly all the nerves on Richard's face _vanish_ and he looks more comfortable than he has in the whole of the past hour with Dean. That's... encouraging.

“Deano,” Graham says next, turning and pulling him into a hug, too. “What do you think, then? Go on, tell me your honest opinion.”

“Of what, Adam? He's alright. Sassy mouth and a fuck load of knitwear, but I'm assuming you like that sort of thing.”

Graham rolls his eyes. “About the party, you dolt. Not bad, eh?”

There are half a dozen waiters milling serenely about the house, and a young bloke in a waistcoat making cocktails in the kitchen, something soft and instrumental streaming from the Hi-Fi speakers connected throughout all the rooms, and the patio doors are opened out on to a sun-drenched summer's day. It is, by all accounts, lovely, and Dean tells Graham so. Graham beams.

“Ta, Dean. I appreciate that coming from you, what with your keen eye for aesthetics and all. Richard's into that, aren't you, Rich? Houses and that? Hey, don't mind if I steal him away for a sec, do you, Dean? I know he's your date but Dawson's got a wicked tale about Mittelmark and Rich'll cry laughing.”

Dean doesn't know who Dawson is or why Richard would want to hear his wicked tale, but before he can say anything Graham's dragging Richard off through the lounge into the kitchen, and the last form of communication between them is the apologetic look Richard throws over his shoulder.

Graham's like that; friendly and joyous in a lollopy dog sort of way, but kind of overbearing at times too. Dean is once again alone. He stands with a near-empty glass of Pimm's, torn between trying to find a profound way to compare his life to the limp pieces of fruit floating in the drink and wandering off to find someone else to talk to. After all, most of Adam's mates are Dean's mates. In the end, he clips a waiter on the elbow, holding out his glass for a refill.

An attractive man with a mop of black curls, in a white henley and black jeans, turns to him, looking cheerful.

“Yes?”

“Please can I have a refill?”

“Oh – sure!” The man holds out the pitcher dangling carelessly from his fingers and sloshes a load into Dean's glass. “I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be doing this.”

Dean quirks a brow. “How can you forget your job?”

“Well I'm not _really_ a waiter.”

“So what are you then, an imposter?”

“I'm just a waiter for today, is what I mean. Though I'm beginning to regret it, all these people to see to. You're the first to say please – one buxom lady _clicked her fingers_ at me.”

Dean supposes that was Adam's mother.

“Still, fifteen quid an hour,” the man goes on cheerfully, “not to mention lots of dolled-up eye candy.”

Dark eyes rake none-too-subtly up Dean's body, and Dean actually takes a step back in surprise. He's not sure he'd welcome sleazy praise at any other time, but since he's here with Richard he's definitely not allowed to acknowledge it. Just like he isn't allowed to acknowledge the fact that the guy's rocking an Irish accent, and Dean sort of has a thing for Irish accents, just like everyone else in the universe.

“Right well, erm, cheers for the drink.” Dean toasts him a little hesitantly and turns to go back to Adam, when the man stops him.

“Hey, don't wander off. Thought we were having a chat.”

“Mate, you're a waiter.”

The guy has extremely severe eyebrows, and they furrow to a knot above his nose. “What, so we can't talk?”

“I'm just saying, you kind of have a job to do.”

“Right, and I'm saying it's utterly tedious and you've obviously wound up on your own already, which is always the worst position to be in at a party. I like your eyebrow thing, by the way. Very early Millennium Beckham.”

Shit. Dean had forgotten about that.

“I was revamping my image,” he mutters.

The man laughs, a warm, white-teeth laugh, and Dean feels a little glow of satisfaction in spite of himself.

“How d'you end up being a waiter for a day, then?” he finds himself asking.

“I work in the same shopping centre as Adam down in Brixton. He asked me if I fancied earning a bit of money for a day. Dead embarrassed, he was, but it's pretty hard to offend me.”

“Oh right. You work in furniture shops with him?”

The man rubs the space between his eyebrows, glancing briefly about the room like he's already lost interest. “I work in the pet shop. Think I'm gonna go for a smoke, fancy joining me?”

“I don't smoke.”

“Not really what I asked. Come on. Hey, what's your name?”

“Dean. But I really think I ought to –”

The guy slots an arm through Dean's, threading them through clumps of guests towards the kitchen. “I'm Aidan,” he says brightly.

Dean finds himself tugged through the patio doors and on the way out he sees Richard, engaged in conversation. Or rather, having conversation rubbed in his face by three burly balding men in tight dinner jackets. Poor guy. Dean almost wants to go over and offer some assistance, but the man – Aidan – is pulling him out into the back garden rather insistently.

“Nice out here, innit? Adam's got it made. How do you know him?”

“We're good friends,” Dean says a little belatedly. “We used to live next door to each other.”

“Before Graham bought him a mansion?”

“Before Graham bought him a mansion.”

“Where do you live?”

Dean hesitates but, to be honest, the guy doesn't look too Kensington Palace Gardens himself.

“Camberwell,” he replies. “You?”

“Brixton. Two minute walk from work. It's the pits, though.”

Automatically, the words form in Dean's head: _actually_ , Brixton is fast becoming one of London's most desirable areas, both residentially and commercially, having successfully diminished its checkered 1980s reputation and transformed into a vibrant, multicultural district targeted especially by bohemians and artists.

Naturally, none of this leaves his lips. They stroll to the furthest point of the garden where they aren’t in danger of serious head collisions with platters of honey mustard sausages. Aidan knocks aside a few white balloons and sits himself down on the grass, setting the pitcher of Pimm's between them. He whips out a Benson & Hedges packet with only one fag left inside.

“Whoops,” he says. “Good job you don't smoke after all. I shouldn't really, filthy habit, stunts one's growth, etcetera.”

Dean glances sideways at him. Aidan's lips around the end of the cigarette are very full and pink, and he has two endless rows of even teeth which are startlingly white and attractive as a result, though Dean seems to remember hearing that very white teeth might denote calcium deficiency or something. Still, he _looks_ healthy. Olive skin, clean fingernails. He smells of ordinary aftershave and fresh smoke, and looks like he'd be more at home in an indie rock band than waiting on guests at a Fulham engagement party.

Dean has a strange, abrupt fantasy of leaning over and kissing the guy, just to see what it would be like. Aidan turns to him, eyebrows raised, as if he might have guessed.

“So are you here with anyone?”

“A guy, Richard. Adam set it up. He's a co-worker of Graham's.”

“Never heard of him,” says Aidan, in a tone which suggests that because he's never heard of him, Richard doesn't exist.

“He's nice.”

“Hmm.” He draws hard on his cigarette and lets the hoary smoke unfurl in that smooth, James-Dean-in-East-of-Eden way that Dean could never quite master. “So why did he leave you on your own if he's so nice?”

“He didn't,” says Dean, wondering why he's out here, batting the same helium balloon away from his face. “Graham came and stole him away before either of us could say a word. Actually if you crane your neck around this couple here you can see him in the kitchen. Richard, I mean.”

“The bald one with the Caesar nose?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “The one next to him not saying a word.”

“Oh! Oh right, I see.” Aidan sniffs disinterestedly, takes another drag of the cigarette. “Very handsome. Recently single, I see.”

Dean whips his head round to see where Aidan's looking. “What?”

“Pale ring line on his left hand. Can see it all the way from here.”

Dean's only just met the guy, but somehow he thinks it's fair game to give Aidan a tiny shove in the arm.

“No you can't, you liar.”

“Well, he _looks_ recently single anyway.”

“How can you _look_ recently single?”

“Easy. Just look like the last place on earth you want to be is an engagement party on a blind date with a hot blond. I mean, he _should_ be over here sweeping you off your feet, but he's not. I'm having to do it instead.”

“Right, and that's what you're doing, are you? Sweeping me off my feet?”

“Giving it my best shot. More Pimm's, darlin'?”

Dean's only downed half his glass, but Aidan fills it to the brim for him again anyway. It's as a large piece of lime sloshes into the glass and out again on to the grass that it hits Dean how absurd the situation is; sitting at the bottom of his best friend's garden amongst engagement balloons, ditched by his date and getting drunk with a clearly insane waiter. Drunk off Pimm's. That's sad, isn't it? That's a sign of ageing.

He finds himself wondering how old Aidan is. He looks young.

“So what does Richard do?” Aidan asks.

“I have to say I'm a little confused as to why your flirting method involves bringing up the guy I'm already here with.”

“I'm scoping out the competition, obviously.”

Dean smiles. “I told you, he works with Graham.”

“Yeah, well, I don't know what Graham does. In fact, I've only spoken to him once when he asked if I'd slip him an out of hours margarita before the guests arrived. Clearly terrified about tying the knot, that's for sure.”

“What's with all your little observations? Oh God, you're not a Psychology graduate, are you?”

“Journalism,” Aidan shoots back, surprising Dean. “You?”

“Architecture,” he replies lightly, eager not to get into a conversation about it. “Anyway, Graham's not scared of getting married. He's crazy about Adam.”

“Not saying he isn't. But, you know, you can be in love with someone and still piss yourself walking down the aisle.”

“Poetic.”

“I'm good like that.”

Dean rolls his eyes so hard it makes a _sound_. He looks across the garden to where Richard is still standing looking flustered with Caesar, then back at Aidan. Dean's surprised by how much he wants to stay with him, and that alone is what makes him stand up and clap Aidan gently on the shoulder and say, “I think I should be getting back to Richard now. It was nice to meet you.”

Aidan looks surprised. “Leaving so soon? Darling, you wound me.”

“Are you drunk on the job?”

“Little bit,” Aidan admits. “Here, hang on a sec.”

He digs in the pocket of those sinfully tight jeans and produces a tiny plastic pen, the kind you'd nick from an Argos counter. He grabs Dean's arm and scrawls his number sloppily along the skin of his wrist, jarring slightly when a 3 slopes over the jut of bone.

“So you can call me once Handsome gets you home by nine with a kiss on the cheek.”

“Right. And how am I supposed to explain now why I have someone else's number scribbled across my arm?”

“Roll your sleeves down, dopey. This isn't 1980s Miami.” Aidan lies back down in the grass, one hand behind his head, and waggles his fingers up at Dean, squinting in the sunlight. “Have fun.”

Dean sets off across the grass, a stupid smile on his face. He only glances back once, and when he does he sees Aidan's closed his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean's had a fair bit to drink by the time the party trickles to a finish around seven, but Richard is admirably sober. Perhaps he's pleasure-intolerant. More likely he's just planned to be ready and willing to give Dean a lift home in his car. Even in his current state Dean knows to be immensely grateful. It takes fifteen minutes to drive from Adam's to Dean's, but forty-five to walk. And that's if you're brisk, which Dean very rarely is.

Adam tells Dean he's welcome to stay and have a drink on the patio, just the four of them, and watch the sun go down, and watch the balloons deflate. But both Adam and Graham have been up since dawn fretting over this party, and it's obvious they're tired. Dean gets up on tip toes and hugs Adam hard, feeling tipsy and sentimental.

“Congratulations, Adam. I'm so happy for you. Really,” he murmurs, not missing the amused huff of laughter in his ear as Adam pats him on the back.

Dean glances around for Aidan but the house is just about empty, bar a few nameless cousins, and Dean can't see him anywhere. Not surprising, really. He probably bunked off hours ago. Dean thinks about asking Adam why on earth he hired the guy, this guy from a pet shop in Brixton, then thinks better of it. He doesn't want to get Aidan into trouble.

He worries things will be more difficult conversation-wise on the way home, what with Richard being stone-cold sober. It turns out there's no need to worry at all. Richard keeps things moving along with a stream of polite questions and, once it becomes clear he's more comfortable, he tells Dean about work, and Dean replies with clumsy chatter about more troublesome clients.

They trade tales about unreasonable customers, and though Richard complains about particularly pesky jurisdiction, he seems more content to listen to Dean, seems genuinely amused and entertained by him, if the near-constant smile on his face is anything to go by. Dean finds himself liking the attention. It draws a stark contrast from Jared, who on more than one occasion literally pretended to be asleep when Dean started talking about something he wasn't interested in.

Once home, Richard gets out and goes around the car and opens the door for Dean, and Dean feels an unexpected stirring of attraction towards him. There's a deeper part of him which acknowledges he's always sort of had a thing for _that_ type. That Cary Grant type, the gentlemanly nature, the kind of man who'd cook you dinner and _make love_ to you, rather than order you a take-out and ask if you want to go down on him as thanks.

Again, stark contrasts between Jared and Richard being drawn here.

And it _is_ surprising really, because the messy break-up has managed to leach Dean of any romantic interest for the past few months. At any rate, it's been pretty easy to avoid loveless, sexual encounters. His pessimism and strong aversion to leaving his flat does the trick.

Now he considers the possibility that he might one day sleep with this guy Richard, and the fact that Dean doesn't immediately scoff at the idea speaks volumes.

“So today was nice,” Dean tells him as they walk along the street side by side. “Thanks for taking me.”

“It was my pleasure,” says Richard. “I'm sorry things got a bit hectic back there.”

“I don't think it'd be a 14 Bishop's Road party if it wasn't at least a little chaotic.”

Richard laughs, his arm briefly brushing Dean's.

“Well, perhaps we could get together another time and go somewhere quieter,” he suggests.

It's so obvious that the words don't come easy to Richard, but Dean pushes both Adam and Aidan's words of “recently single” to the back of his mind and puts it down to nerves instead. The evening is warm and orange and smells rich with greenery, and he's always loved a city summer, it makes him feel woozy and giddy, so he smiles up at Richard and touches Richard's hand lightly with his own and says, “That'd be good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure!”

“Great!” Richard blurts out. He seems embarrassed by his outburst and says a little more softly, “Great, yes. Good. Then I'll call you.”

“Right. Except you don't have my number.”

“No, I don't.” Richard hesitates. “Can I have your number?”

And Dean considers the possibility of some smooth Jimmy Stewart move, splaying one hand on Richard's broad chest and reaching round with the other to slide his phone out of his pocket, tapping in his number while they embrace.

He's not drunk enough for that, and Richard would probably think he was trying to nick from him, so in the end Dean recites the eleven digits, repeats them for mistakes, and watches as Richard re-pockets the phone himself.

Dean briefly entertains himself by wondering if he's going to get a kiss, knowing already that he probably won't. Indeed, after flicking his eyes to Dean's front door and back again, Richard darts forward and only kisses him on the cheek, chaste and sweet.

“Goodnight, then,” he says quietly, stepping back.

Dean leans his head, a little woozily, against the doorframe, and smiles at him, and says "Goodnight," as Richard retreats down the stone steps with his hands in his pockets.

 

-

Inside, the flat is tinged eerie yellow from the warm evening. Everything is still, and very quiet, and Dean's filled with the distinct sense that he's done something wrong. Maybe he should have invited Richard in. Not that anything would have happened – Richard's made it abundantly clear he doesn't find Dean ravishing enough to set aside any kind of 'no sex till the twenty-fifth date' rule for one night.

But Dean hates being _that_ guy, the one home by eight, in bed by ten, when he could have been doing something more with his evening, even if it was just having a cup of tea with a nice man. He thinks briefly about doing something spontaneous, opening the front door and trundling down the steps, catching up to a strolling Richard, asking if he fancies coming in for a drink after all.

In the end he shrugs off his jacket and goes into the kitchen, finds a glass and a cheap bottle of Sainsbury's Finest Saint Mont and sets to work. It relaxes him, sends away the last few shreds of jitters the party didn't quite manage to shake, and soon he's well on his way to drunkenness. And so what? Doesn't he deserve it? The last six months have been an exhausting blur of long working hours and loneliness, trying to find a new flatmate and, when that failed, trying to find a different place to live, a place he could afford, packing four years of his life into B&Q boxes, moving into _this_  place, watching his best friend get engaged to the man of his dreams, and watching himself turn thirty. He'll drink as much as he damn well pleases, and he'll enjoy it all the while.

Like most things, it loses its thrill quickly. He gets about half way through the bottle when he finds himself in equal parts starving and nauseous. The first problem he solves by opening the fridge and scarfing the last two slices of honey roast ham and half a pot of low fat Onken yogurt.

Then he goes into the bathroom with ideas of washing off the sickness, tugs off his white shirt and sees on his arm a smeared line of chicken-scratch numbers. He hasn't completely forgotten about them, of course. Definitely isn't one of those _oh, would you look at that, I was about to wash that right off – silly me!_ moments.

Because really, when a manic (later identified as drunk) and handsome Irish bloke scribbles his number on your arm, it's a bit too twee to pretend you've forgotten about it. Dean's been thinking about Aidan all day.

It isn't a tricky decision, deciding to call. Dean liked Aidan at the party, and Aidan gave him his number, and once Dean's made a better note of it and taken a shower, he calls Aidan on his mobile. There's no immediate answer, and after five rings Dean's just working out what to say when someone unexpectedly picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hi... Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“It's Dean.”

Silence.

“Dean from the party?”

“Oh!” says Aidan. “Right, of course.”

Well, that's encouraging.

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, no, not at all. What's up, man?”

“You said to call once my date got me home by nine with a kiss on the cheek. Which you were right about, by the way. So I just thought... I don't know. Thought I'd see what you meant by it.”

There's a pause on Aidan's end, and Dean hears him click his tongue and hum.

“Do you wanna come over, then?”

Dean blinks. He thinks again about being that guy. Home by eight, in bed by ten.

“Sure, why not?”

“Cool. Grab a pen.”

 

-

There's a bus route to Brixton, which thankfully means bypassing the tube. Dean finds Aidan's flat on a long street off a little parade of shops, complete with shabby off licence and dubious-looking Chinese takeaway. The residential side isn't too bad, though. Rows of red-brick Edwardians with interesting porch arches; Aidan's flat is on the ground floor of number fifty-five. Dean tries the doorbell, realises it doesn't work, and knocks instead. Aidan comes to the door moments later dressed in a pair of plaid pyjama pants and a blinding yellow t-shirt which probably wouldn't be considered fashionable for anyone anywhere ever. He smiles, looking sleepy and considerably more sober than the last time Dean saw him.

“Hello,” he says. “Nice to see you again.”

“You too.” Dean pauses. “Is this weird?”

“Nah. Maybe? Who cares? I'm surprised you called, actually. I was thinking about you.”

“Right. Except you didn't remember who I was on the phone, so...”

Aidan has already started back into the house, leaving the door open for him, and Dean is left little choice but to follow him down a dark hallway, the narrow space of which is occupied by, among other things, several pairs of shoes, a large duffle bag, a clothes maiden and an old orange bicycle.

The lounge Aidan leads him into isn't much tidier. It's a big square room full of _stuff_. There's a huge old sofa and stark white walls, but Aidan has clearly done his best to cover these by draping the couch in a huge patchwork quilt and sticking loads of art prints and film posters on the walls. There's a few interesting potted plants dotted about and a coffee table buried beneath junk and stacks of old paperbacks and cushions everywhere, like Aidan's a giant cat, and at least three rugs strewn across very old floorboards, and a big old TV surrounded by mountains of DVDs. Something indie and psychedelic is streaming from small, wiry speakers that Dean can't locate in the room.

There's an assortment of tea-stained mugs and crumb-strewn plates on the table which look like they've seen better days too. Dean instinctively curls his fingers.

“Take a seat. Want a drink?” but Aidan's already gone off into the adjoining kitchen before Dean can answer, and he returns with two cans of Carling and chucks one over. “You can sit down, you know. I'd say the mess isn't mine but you probably wouldn't believe me.”

“You live with someone?”

“I have a flatmate, but he isn't here much. He comes round and eats and leaves his shit lying about, but he's got this girlfriend and they're always at her place getting high or whatever. But it's fine, you know, it's like living alone and having half my rent paid.” Aidan flops down right into the centre of the couch, long legs folded beneath him, and cracks the tab on his beer. A fair amount dribbles down his hand and he licks it off, all the way to his wrist. “What about you? Do you live with anyone?”

Carefully, Dean sits down next to him. “No. I actually had to downsize recently since I couldn't find a suitable person to live with.”

“That's too bad. If we'd known each other back then we could've hooked up.”

The words “hooked up” hang in the air for a moment. Dean concentrates on his drink, leaning into Aidan's small toes where they're pressed against his thigh. He's not entirely sure how he ended up here, but there's a little thrill in it all the same. He'd almost tricked himself into thinking Aidan wasn't attractive, that he'd made it up but, reassured - surprised, even - Dean tries now to get a good look at him without being too obvious.

“So what of Handsome?” asks Aidan. “Do I hear wedding bells?”

“He's really nice.”

“Mm yeah, you said that.”

“Did I? Sorry.”

“No need to apologise, dollface. Not your fault the guy has nothing positive to offer beyond good manners and a well-cut suit.”

“You're pretty mean, you know. You've never even met him.”

“I don't need to meet him, you give yourself away. Everything you're thinking is so plainly displayed on that darling face of yours.” He leans across and flicks Dean on the chin, and Dean swats him away in annoyance.

“Right. And what am I thinking right now?”

Five minutes later they're lying on the couch kissing, and Dean's hand has found its way into the front of Aidan's pyjama bottoms.

Twenty minutes of quick, perfunctory sex follows. Aidan shows him to a bedroom which is more bed than room, lets himself be shagged soundly into the mattress for a bit, then climbs on top of Dean and rides him for ten minutes until they both finish and flop side by side, boneless, under a dusty lace-curtained sunset.

“Think I'm still gonna give him a go, though,” Dean says, breathless and sweat-sheened. “He's going to call me and ask for a second date, and I'm going to say yes.”

In a strangely glamorous, almost ritualistic way, Aidan rolls on to his side and takes care of the condom for Dean, making an aim for the bin across the room and missing. His arm flops back on the mattress.

“Whatever you want, angel face,” Aidan yawns. “Make sure you get a drink in him this time, won't you?”

He sleeps on his back with his mouth open and his limbs everywhere. It's only the alcohol still coursing through his system which allows Dean to sleep too, tucked against Aidan's body, a hand on his chest. He wakes a few hours later, cold now the sun has truly set, pulls the covers over them both without waking Aidan and settles back down again.

It's impossible to sleep a second time. His mouth is dry and he can feel the onset of a tiny hangover, and Aidan doesn't snore but he breathes loudly, throat clicking on every exhale until Dean's so aware of it that he can't block it out.

He thinks about scooping his clothes up from the end of the bed and dressing, leaving quick as he arrived. Aidan might be a bit confused, but he probably wouldn't care.

But does Dean really want to be one of those people you see on the bus sometimes, hungover and half-asleep with their head leaning against the window in the dead hours of dark morning? And would it really be so bad to stay? Some warmth, some intimacy – he hasn't had that in months. It's not like he has to pretend it means anything. Aidan doesn't seem the type to wake up and wonder why there are arms around him.

So he lies back down and curls into Aidan's side. Then follows a long, long nothingness wherein Dean wonders if this is really what he meant by endeavouring to not be home by eight and in bed by ten.

He must fall asleep at some point, though, because hours later he's aware of being jolted awake. Aidan's peering down at him, bleary-eyed, and when he sees Dean's awake his lips curve into a chapped smile.

“Not that I don't feel like a total bastard for waking a sleeping puppy, but I've got some errands to run,” he says, voice scratchy.

Dean yawns and sits up. The room is drenched in sunlight from Aidan's lack of suitable curtains, and the bedsheets are sticking to Dean's skin. He'd probably recommend some thermals, were it not a terribly unsexy thing to say.

Then again, he's not exactly the epitome of sex this early in the morning anyway.

“Right, yeah, course,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, I'll get out of your hair.”

“Slow down, Seabiscuit, I didn't say you had to go immediately. Woke you well in advance so I could at least make you breakfast.”

“Waited on in a Brixton flat,” Dean murmurs, running a hand through his hair. “A dream fulfilled.”

“Hey, less of the lip or you won't get anything.”

Aidan sits up and the covers pool at his waist as he stretches. For the first time Dean notices the small, circular tattoo on his shoulder, and just how much dark hair is smattered across his chest. He's also rather more muscular than he appears with his clothes on. Dean did notice that last night, of course, but in the light of morning his chest and arms appear even more solid.

He climbs out of bed and stands, unashamedly naked, before pulling those plaid pyjama bottoms back on. They sit low on his hips as he pads out of the room. Dean averts his gaze and busies himself with dressing. When he goes into the kitchen, he can only see half of Aidan's body. The other half appears to be stuck in the fridge.

“Change of plan,” he tells Dean, voice muffled. “I thought I had food but... apparently not. Well I mean, there's this.” He emerges holding something which is either a deformed lemon or a very old grapefruit. He strokes his lip thoughtfully. Then he puts it back and closes the fridge. “Ah well. Coffee?”

“Coffee would be great.”

They drink it on the couch in companionable silence. It's cheap coffee but the mugs are clean and Aidan gives Dean all the Ibuprofen he wants, so it's not too bad really. There are worse one night stand wake-up calls.

“I don't think I ever asked,” Aidan says finally, “what is it you actually do?”

Dean says, “I'm a Health and Safety consultant.”

“Right. Which means you..?”

“I tell people whether or not a building is buildable.”

“Oh. I thought you trained to be an architect?”

“Well, I did but... you know, if everyone who trained to be an architect actually became architects there'd be way too many... architects in the world.” Dean shrugs. “Anyway, it's fine, I like my job.”

“Yeah,” Aidan drawls, “why wouldn't you?”

“How's business at the pet shop?”

“Not bad. Never really dries up, there's always some silly sod willing to buy a puppy.” He pauses. “I'm thinking of leaving. Before they fire me.”

“Why would they fire you...?”

“I accidentally stole some stock.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, left with six geckos one day. I didn't mean to. And I was gonna bring 'em back, only I have a cat – she's about somewhere – and she eats most things. Not the first time I've had to leave a job because of her. Anyway, I was gonna return all six but I came back with... four.”

“I can see why that might be a problem.”

“And now they're looking into it and stuff, so I think it's best if I leave before I have to pay for them. I just don't have the extra funds to pay for two potentially dead lizards, you know?”

“But if you leave your job you won't have any money at all.”

“Never thought of it like that,” Aidan says cheerfully. “Well, I'm sure I'll figure something out.”

Dean suspects very much that's how Aidan gets by in life: “figuring something out”. After the coffee Aidan walks Dean to the front door. Dean doesn't ask what errands he's running, and Aidan doesn't ask if he wants to come along, so they go in for a hug and end up clapping each other on the shoulder instead.

“It was nice to meet you,” says Dean.

“You too. Good luck with, er...”

“Richard?”

“Richard, right.”

“You're not good with names.”

Aidan barks out a laugh. “No, I'm not.”

“See you around then,” says Dean, even though he most likely won't.

“Yeah, okay. See you around.”


	4. Chapter 4

Jared used to believe that no matter your situation in life, you could always make yourself satisfied with it. Dean was and still is dubious of this claim. What if one day you woke to find yourself bound in front of a television streaming a Jigsaw monologue? What if you were swallowed up in a time machine and promptly feasted on by bloodthirsty Velociraptors? What if you had to live alone in a damp flat in Camberwell because your boyfriend of six years left you for someone else? What if?

Whenever Dean would suggest unwholesome scenarios such as these, Jared would roll his dark eyes and say, “You're missing the _point_ ,” and then proceed to valiantly avoid explaining what, exactly, the point was.

Still, Dean knew what he meant anyway, even if he pretended not to. Jared was a new-age city boy through and through so naturally he believed in feng shui, in the same way he believed in the benefits of protein shakes and detox (i.e. not much at all, but it made for a good tabletop conversation).

The belief that you attract your own luck. Life energy. Positive qi. “It's all about the force,” Jared used to say, “it's like Star Wars.” He was always doing that, comparing real life situations with the entertainment world, as though he thought Dean too simple to understand anything but pop culture references. He once described their relationship as being “a bit Siegfried and Roy,” and it didn't take long before Dean realised that was Jared's way of asking if they could adopt a St Bernard.

But the luck thing, the positive energy thing, that was what irked Dean the most. It was like Jared was undermining Dean's problems when he said things like, “If you don't like your situation, get yourself out of it.” It was _easy_ for Jared to say things like that. Jared had the job of his dreams. That job was the whole reason they moved to England in the first place. If anything, Dean's problems were a result of Jared's incessant good luck.

Sometimes, though, Dean wonders if there is some truth in the whole luck attraction thing. After all, Jared's gone now, and Dean's life is still significantly less than glorious. It's starting to worry him.

He didn't care so much in his twenties because he was in his twenties. No one really expects you to have a firm hold on life in your twenties. It's nice if you do. It'll make your mum happier at Sunday dinner if you're married and have spawned a flautist daughter and bullet-headed son, own a Golden Retriever and a Poggenpohl kitchen extension and a holiday home in Torquay. But it's not _necessary_.

Now he's thirty, and he's still eating cereal straight out of the box. He's still not entirely sure what a tax rebate _is_. The most regular sex he has is with his hand. And when he does have sex it's with people like... well, people like Aidan.

Insane people.

Then there's his job. Sometimes it's alright, his job. It's not much of a challenge, but at least it means he's never stressed. His co-workers are alright, too. James, who has the divider beside Dean's in the office, is always good for a laugh, a cheering up on a Monday morning and a steady supply of Sophocles Bakery cupcakes on Friday afternoons.

However, today it is Thursday, meaning there is neither cheers to be had nor Sophocles cupcakes, and everyone is anxious for the weekend to start. James - often cheery but possessing of a pretty volatile temper - is seething, all but ranting to a client on the phone who wants to know why his desire to convert an 18th-century chapel into a soft play centre is being denied.

Dean's sitting opposite a regular client of his, Mr George Roche. Middle-aged, thoroughbred Cockney, twenty-five year old Jennifer Lopez lookalike for a wife. He's been coming to Winter & Co Consultants for the past six months now in the hopes that his dilapidated tennis racquet warehouse in Peckham is fit for conversion and eventual habitation.

It's not.

“The thing is, George, you're still not complying with mandatory building regulations. We need to produce reports for a fire risk assessment and an asbestos survey, especially since the warehouse was built before the year 2000. Those assessments can only be carried out once you've created the conditions necessary.”

“What are the conditions necessary?”

“Well, basically you need to shift all the tennis stuff out of the attic.”

“And how can I do that if the council won't supply me with workmen?”

“I don't know, do it yourself? You have kids, don't you?”

Mr Roche shakes his head morosely. “Becky doesn't like them getting their hands dirty. Come on, Dean, chuck me a bone. How long have I been coming here?”

He says it like Winter & Co's a tavern and he a loveable patron. Then again, it's true that they now know each other well enough to be on first name basis. It's the steadiest relationship Dean's got going on in his life at the moment: George Roche fails to follow precautions, Dean eases him through current legislation, same time again next week. Love's young dream.

“I'm sorry, but it doesn't work like that,” Dean says primly, straightening papers that have nothing to do with their current meeting. “You're in ownership of a non-domestic property, so you have a duty to manage the asbestos. Don't roll your eyes, asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK. I mean, I'm not saying there necessarily _is_ any in your tennis... house, but if you don't have a risk assessment carried out materials are automatically assumed to contain asbestos. You'll have the property taken off you and put up for auction. So either stick to the rules or sell. Your choice.”

“Can't sell. It's an investment, innit?”

Investing in Peckham property. Wise move, George, wise move. Perhaps next time you could try Dagenham?

“Well then,” says Dean. “Rules it is.”

Mr Roche looks at him with such disappointment in his sallow eyes. Dean half expects a quip of, “What happened to you, man? You used to be cool.”

For the record, Dean O'Gorman was never actually very cool. But there was certainly a time in his life when he wasn't a stuffy consultant in south London, ranting about statistics pertaining to asbestos fibers. There was a time when Dean lived in a beach front townhouse. He had soft, sun-bleached curls and a permanent tan. He had dignity. Ah, remember the days of old.

When Mr Roche has left, Dean can go home. It's been a long day. Not actually any longer than usual but, you know, _one of those days_. He wants to just get back to the flat, maybe pick up one of those M &S Chinese box meals on the way, have a bath and change into the flannel pyjamas his mum sent for his birthday and get in bed with a stack of Grand Designs episodes on 4oD. In fact, if he skips the M&S trip and orders takeaway he could be snuggled up with Kevin McCloud before six.

But Adam and Graham are coming over for dinner. And it's not that Dean doesn't want them to, because when they come for dinner they always bring ritzy alcohol and consoling words and, most importantly, actual company. But there's a strong possibility the flat is a tip and Dean's forgotten to buy the cream and cheese for the carbonara.

And in this case, “strong possibility” means the flat is a tip and he's forgotten to buy the cream and cheese for the carbonara.

They're due over at six, so on the way home he nips to Waitrose (he'd go to Tesco but Adam's like a bloodhound and can always sniff out the cheap stuff) and buys what he needs, along with cheesecake Häagen-Dazs for dessert and a bottle of red to drink while he's cooking.

Once home he changes out of his work clothes and tidies up by shoving everything messy into the linen closet and running the hoover over the lounge. He's just draining the pasta when Adam and Graham arrive, armed with a gorgeous bottle of Prosecco as expected (Adam adores sparkling wine. Says it's like grown-up lemonade).

“Hey, you've got a healthy glow going on!” Adam exclaims, hugging him. “What's that with, then? Lots of sex and a sneaky bit of wine?”

More like lots of wine and a minimal amount of sex, but Dean takes care not to mention this.

“That'll be the steam from the pasta,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Hey, Graham. You've got a bit of white dust on your nose there, man.”

“Oh God, it's plaster,” says Graham, letting Adam rub his nose for him. “Sorry, we're in the process of ripping the bathroom out.”

“Again?”

“No, it's the en-suite this time. Ads is getting his jacuzzi tub, finally.”

Dean lets them both in and closes the door. Since the breakfast table is nothing like the black marble-top six-seater he and Jared had at their old flat, they have to eat sitting cross-legged on the couch, watching tawny owl chicks released back into the wild on The One Show.

Despite this not being at all how Dean imagined thirty would be, he's actually rather enamoured by both the woolly owl chicks and his mother's Ultimate Carbonara Recipe and happy to enjoy both in relative silence. Adam, however, clearly has other things on his mind.

“Dean,” he says, a touch impatiently. “Are you going to tell us, or what?”

“Tell you...?”

Adam rolls his eyes. “The likelihood that we'll be saved in a nuclear apocalypse if we all hide in your linen closet.” He nudges Dean's thigh with his toes. “About Richard!”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” says Dean, “oh.”

“Well, what happened?”

“When?”

“On Saturday! God, are you not with it today or something?”

“Adam,” says Graham.

To be honest, Dean knows what Adam's getting at. It's been five days since the engagement party and still no word from Richard. Dean's getting anxious. Did he over-flirt? God, it's been so long since he's flirted with someone, he's forgotten how traumatic it can be. Maybe he scared Richard off entirely.

Or perhaps Richard knows about Aidan. Perhaps he watched from his tinted car windows as Dean left his home and ambled over to Aidan's flat for a quickie. Then again, if that's the case Dean isn't sure he wants Richard to call anyway. It's not really in his best interests to start dating a stalker.

“He's really nice,” Dean says carefully. “Thanks for setting it up, Graham. I'm just not sure he's very interested.”

“What makes you say that?” asks Graham.

“Well he hasn't called, so...”

“It's only been five days!”

Adam bats Graham on the arm, exasperated. “Don't be dim. Everyone knows three days' wait is playing hard to get, five is just ridiculous.”

Graham looks confused. “Is it?”

“Well, when you're Dean and Richard's age you can't afford to mess around.”

“Hey!” says Dean, affronted. “What happened to thirty being Byronic?”

“I don't think Byron would have waited five days for a phone call.”

“Richard's been involved in a graduate training scheme in Sunderland this week,” Graham explains patiently. “Overnight stop and everything. He's probably exhausted.”

“Why didn't you say that before?” asks Adam.

“Well, I didn't think it was all that _vital_. Five days, that's not even a week!”

“For goodness' sake, Graham, Dean's love life is at stake here!”

“Look, the only thing at stake here is my sanity if you two don't shut up. I honestly don't mind what happens. He was nice enough, but if he doesn't call then it's not the end of the world. It's just... one of those things. Like chicken pox. It either happens or it doesn't.”

“Like chicken pox,” Adam echoes. “Honestly, Dean, you can be so _maudlin_.”

On screen, the woolly owl chicks begin a desperate tackle for their dinner, and Dean pretends to be enraptured. The three of them finish their own food in relative peace, and lounge on the sofa for a good hour afterwards, doling out the last of the wine. Dean tries to concentrate on the television, but all he can think about is whether or not he's truly pleased that Richard's had an actual excuse for the five days' wait. Maybe it would be easier if Richard just isn't interested. Dean wouldn't have to make any effort, then. He could just go back to simple, safe solitude, never having to worry about disappointing a good, handsome man.

But, as if Jared was right all along about the laws of attraction, Dean's phone flashes to life and starts ringing. Adam, who was in the middle of reeling off potential wedding bouquets, stutters into silence. He soon finds his voice again.

“Pick it up, then!” he shrieks, with such ferocity that Dean almost falls off the couch in his haste to grab the mobile.

He doesn't personally feel the need for hysterics. It's probably not even Richard, it's probably – oh wait, nope. Nope. Unrecognised oh-double-seven number. Most likely Richard. Either that or Jared's flown back to England on a whim and wants to meet up for coffee.

Ha. Ha ha.

He answers the phone.

“Hello?”

“Dean, hello. It's Richard.”

God, Dean had forgotten how good that deep voice sounds. Like dark chocolate, smooth and biting all at once.

“Hi!” He clears his throat, shrugging off Adam's excited paws. “Uh, hi. Hey, Richard. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. Well, a bit overwhelmed really. It's been a busy week, that's why it's taken me a little while to get back to you. I'm sorry about that. I've been losing track of the days, I hope you didn't think I was... well, I hope you don't mind.”

“Don't mind at all!” Dean chirps, and he puts his plate on the coffee table and stands up and pads into the kitchen, if only to get away from Adam's pestering little claws. “So what's up?”

“I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me tomorrow evening.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, is that... too soon?”

“No, no!”

“Because if it is we can always try another time. I just thought, you know, Friday would be... but if you're busy...”

“I'm not busy,” Dean says, a little too quickly. “Unless you are? I mean, I'm assuming you're not since you were the one who suggested Friday but... no, Friday's fine. Friday's good. Great, even!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adam raise an eyebrow at Graham.

“So where did you have in mind?” Dean asks, turning back round.

“There's a restaurant near me, The Ledbury? I don't know if you've heard of it, it's French. I thought maybe there. If you'd like to, that is. I could pick you up.”

The Ledbury? Oh God. They went there for Adam's birthday last year. It's so expensive. Like, does-a-celeb-chef-cook-here kind of expensive. Actually he's pretty sure a celebrity chef _does_ cook there. And of course they'll have to go halves on the bill. Dean does some hasty calculations; as long as he doesn't get a starter, goes for some kind of fish, orders the house wine... oh, but Richard won't let them order house wine. He's so clearly not the type. Alright, say he doesn't want to drink. Ask for water –

“Dean?”

“The Ledbury sounds great!”

“Oh good. Wonderful. Shall I pick you up at seven?”

“Actually, can we maybe do it a bit earlier? If that's okay?”

There's no reason other than the fact that Dean likes eating. The sooner the better. Nobody normal willingly eats past seven in the evening at home.

“Sure,” says Richard. “Right, yes. How about I bring a cab just after six, book the table for half past?”

Ah yes, that's more like it.

When they've said their goodbyes, Dean turns to find Graham and Adam peeking at him over the top of the couch. When they catch him looking they quickly turn back round and slide down the sofa.

“Subtle, guys,” says Dean, sitting back down.

“Well?” Adam demands. “What's going on? Are you going out with him? Did I hear 'Ledbury'? I heard 'Ledbury'. Are you going to The Ledbury?”

“Yes.”

“Graham, they're going to the bloody Ledbury! What a sweetheart Richard is.”

“Sweetheart, yes,” says Dean. “Ridiculously rich, also yes.”

“Too right,” says Graham, raising his eyebrows. “The Ledbury's extortionate.”

“Good! It'll be lovely. He's obviously expecting to pay for you, Dean,” says Adam.

“But I can't let him!”

“Of course you can. Nothing stopping you.”

“Other than the laws of 21st century dating.”

“Oh please.” Adam waves a hand dismissively. “If he's offering, you let him.”

“No, I can't.”

“Then pay! Pay half! Bloody hell, s'not like you use your money for much else. Splash out for once. You've got that fifty quid from your mum, use that!”

“But the chip in the windscreen –”

“Bugger the chip in the windscreen! Have you seen Richard? I mean, have you _seen_ him? You're honestly going to let him get away because you can't decide whether to use your own money on him or Autoglass? That car of yours doesn't even bloody work, it's been sitting in that garage in Walworth for three months!”

“Adam, calm down –”

“No! No, I shan't. You listen to me, Dean O'Gorman. You are an attractive, red-blooded, thirty-year-old male, and it's time you started acting like one. None of this simpering and fretting like a teenage girl on her first date. Be a hedonist for once in your life. Order champagne! Order lobster! And tomorrow, before he comes to get you, I am not coming round here. You are picking out your own clothes, and you're not to call me _once_ until you get home. _If_ you get home. Because if he invites you back to his place you're going to say yes.”

“Adam,” says Graham, “I think Dean's got the message.”

“Yeah, I've got the message, Adam –”

“Well, remember it! Understand? Carpe diem! Memento mori! Temet nosce!”

 

 

-

Temet nosce, indeed. Dean can't even decide which brand of hair gel to use the next evening. How's he supposed to achieve lifelong fulfilment if he can't even choose between Ted Baker and Trevor Sorbie?

Baker wins out and Dean shrugs a coat on over his black button-up as the bell rings. Stood tall on the doorstep, Richard's wearing a pale blue button-up and a charcoal tie and a fitted grey cardigan which shows off his broad shoulders magnificently. Well-cut trousers match the tie and pointy black brogues give him another half inch in height. His hair is slicked back and his face is clean-shaven and he smells of something – God, of something _good_.

Don't stare, Dean. Do not stare.

“Hello, Richard!”

“Hello, Dean. You look lovely.”

“Thanks! So do you.”

Richard's smile is brief, as though he's bothered by his own handsomeness. “Shall we be off, then?”

“Absolutely.”

The restaurant is definitely a Date Restaurant. A First Date Restaurant even. And this is technically their first date. Their first date as two men who have actually seen each other and are fond enough of one another to want to get dinner together, anyway. Tasty, overpriced French dinner. Dean has the fifty quid tucked snugly in his wallet.

They're seated at a white-clothed window table, one melting candlestick between them. The warm glow makes Richard look incredible, brooding and bright-eyed all at once, and Dean has to force himself not to stare at the gentle heave of that magnificent chest.

They smile at each other and lapse into silence. Better say something quick.

“Pretty nifty candles, huh?” says Dean, leaning and flicking the dripping wax so that it wobbles precariously and almost topples over. Richard reaches out a hand to steady it. Good job, Rich. Having everybody in the restaurant evacuated through the fire exit is never a good start to a date.

“How has your week been?” Richard asks politely, once they've settled down.

“Good. Slow. Busy. Busy but slow. Yours?”

“Ah, busy but quick, I suppose? Like I said, I haven't been judging the passing of time very well this week.”

“Graham said you were working in the north or something?”

Dean means for it to sound casual, but he regrets the remark immediately. Dammit! Now Richard will know they've been discussing him in his absence. He'll think Dean was asking after him – and he wasn't! It was Adam who brought him up! Damn you, Adam.

But if Richard finds this weird, he doesn't show any outward signs of thinking so.

“The north-east, yes. A training scheme, very tedious stuff.” He gives another nervous smile, as though genuinely worried Dean does think it all tedious. Tactfully, Dean changes the subject.

“Nice to relax at the weekend then, huh?” he says. “Have you been here before?”

“With work, yes. Never with someone I've actually, ah, wanted to spend time with.”

Richard sounds a little more confident this time, and Dean feels himself blush stupidly. There it is, the subtle signal that Richard's beginning to relax. Good.

They turn to the menus. The food all sounds very interesting. Dean's been hungry since lunchtime because James was too busy for Sophocles today and the office remained sans cupcakes as a result. The Ledbury doesn't seem to do cupcakes. Or chips. The menus possess a few choices in terminology which put Dean off; a 'jowl' of pork, for instance. He's not sure he wants to eat a jowl. One of the starters revolves around buffalo milk curd, whatever that is. And pigeon, they do _pigeon_.

He's about to ask what Richard's getting when the waiter arrives. Dean doesn't know much about wine, but luckily Richard's clued up – as expected – although he does the sweet thing of looking to Dean and asking for his opinion first. Dean blurts out a profound suggestion of, “Red?” so they get a chilled bottle of Barbaresco.

Richard gets the steak, and after some deliberation Dean goes for the lamb because he doesn't know what 'muntjac', 'turbot' or 'grouse' is, and if he asks Richard he might end up revealing how hopelessly uncultured he really is. If only they had pictures of the food on the menus, like they do in Nando's. And chicken, like they do in Nando's. This menu is completely bereft of chicken. The French are missing out on some serious business opportunities there.

The waiter goes away and they smile at each other and finally start to talk. Richard asks Dean questions about himself, which is sweet and polite but Dean sort of wishes it could be the other way around. His own life is so clearly colourless in comparison to Richard's. How can you make the phrase “today I gave a guy advice on how to adequately manage his low risk office space” sound exciting to a man who lives in Notting Hill and shops at House of Fraser?

Their food arrives, Dean's two round pieces of pinkish lamb and a few artichokes with leaves stuck to them, Richard's a square of charred cow and two broccoli stems.

“Gosh, not sure I'll be able to finish all this,” Richard murmurs, rubbing his hands together, and Dean gives an unexpected burst of laughter.

Richard looks momentarily embarrassed, like he's been trying to keep a more sarcastic part of himself at bay. Dean wishes he could tell him he likes that sort of thing without sounding weird. He's the sort of person who can quite honestly be laughed into bed. Really - the first person he ever slept with at university was a Woody Allen lookalike at the campus comedy club. He has mortifying memories of drunkenly mumbling, "You're _funny_ ," into Woody's neck as they made out against a Steven Wright caricature.

As the evening goes on, things get a little easier. The wine is gorgeous and the food is minimal but at least they can laugh about it, and when the bill comes it doesn't actually send Dean into cardiac arrest after all. They do split the money (after Richard goes through the obligatory routine of insisting they don't) but Richard pays the hefty tip. Outside in the light summer evening, standing on the brink of Kensington Gardens, Richard asks Dean if he'd like to come back to his house for coffee and dessert.

“I mean, you must still be a bit hungry,” he says. “God knows I am. When we do this again we'll go somewhere more substantial.” Then he pauses, a telling blush spreading high on his cheekbones. “That was me assuming things, wasn't it? I mean, _if_ you want to do this again.”

“Richard,” Dean laughs, made calm and light by the rich Barbaresco, “of course I'd like to do this again.” And he would, actually. He really would. “And I'd like to come have coffee with you, yeah.”

“Great. Great! We can walk, it's only a few minutes away.”

So they walk, and Dean sort of wants to link his arm through Richard's strong one but he doesn't, though their shoulders brush slightly as they go.

“God, this part of London is _so_ beautiful,” says Dean, gazing at the terraces of large Victorian townhouses, the streets lined with rich green summer trees. “Feel like I'm in 'Performance'. You know, with Mick Jagger? Did you ever see that?”

“Ah, yes. Couldn't forget that one. Though you'll have to forgive me, my own house is a little less eccentric,” says Richard, unlocking the black front door to a brown-brick end of terrace. “This is it then. Come on in.”


	5. Chapter 5

The ground floor of Richard's house is a surprising tip.

“It's being renovated,” he explains quickly. “The kitchen's finished, but for now the main living room's upstairs.”

'The main living room'. The main living room! Dean's main living room is his entire flat. They sidestep boxes of oil-stained tools and dusty planks of wood to get to the kitchen down the hall, which is a vaulted palace of gargantuan proportions. Dean practically slips on the flagstone floor. He nearly swears, but stops himself just in time.

“This kitchen is something else, Richard,” he says in his best Kevin McCloud voice.

“Oh, well. Thank you.”

“The light is incredible!” gushes Kevin McCloud. “Did you design it yourself?”

“Decided on everything but the cabinet handles, which my mother picked out of a Wickes catalogue. Can I get you a drink?”

Richard presents Dean with a fine cup of coffee shot with vanilla and a box of those fancy Fabulously Fox's biscuits that get passed round at Christmas. The box seems to have remained unopened until now, so it is very clear that Richard has been gifted these biscuits and has refrained from eating them due to concern for his chiselled physique. Either that or he just doesn't like biscuits, which is frankly insane.

Since Dean stopped caring about his chiselled physique circa 1999, he picks an orange sundae, snaps it in half to reduce the chances of crumb-fall and eats it.

“So,” he says, once they're sitting opposite each other at the breakfast bar, “would I be right in assuming you have a thing for interior design?”

Richard smiles modestly. “I do my best.”

“You do amazingly, by the looks of it.” Dean twists in his seat to have another gaze at the room. “I love the skylight over the far end. I think light is _so_ important, you know, it's one of the material ingredients within the composition of any room.”

He literally stole that entire sentence from a university professor.

“Exactly!” Richard leaps in. “Immaterial in the way that you can't... you can't _touch_ it...” His long fingers come up to grasp at thin air; “but shaping the whole room at the same time. Natural light especially is incredibly important. It's one of the reasons I'm so glad this house is an end of terrace because it meant I could have these wonderful floor-to-ceiling windows installed in the bedroom. Friends of mine thought it was sacrilege, removing the original Victorian windows, but they were crumbling with rot and I wanted to make the room as light as possible. They're wonderful though, not at all obtrusive. Triple hung sash windows, I could... I could show you them later. If you like.”

Dean's more than certain that this is the most Richard has said in one go in all the time they've known each other. He is also more than aware of the thrill that passes across his shoulders at the prospect of seeing Richard's bedroom.

That's being a bit presumptive though, isn't it? And this is where Dean's lack of regular sex is beginning to make itself known; they're both grown men, and all Richard wants to do is show him some windows, for God's sake. No need to get all Mills & Boon about it.

But later, when Richard does take Dean upstairs, Dean can't quite quell the fantasy of them going to the bedroom for a different reason altogether. And so what? It's not like he's going to _act_ on it. Not like he's going to growl, “Why, Rich, these triple hung sash windows excite the exhibitionist in me,” and passionately toss Richard on to the bed (if anything else, Dean is too small to be gallantly throwing 6'2” insurance brokers about).

Still, he could get used to climbing these handmade half-landing stairs.

“Christ, Richard, this bedroom is incredible.”

And it is, yes, but it's also that typical devoid-of-personality bachelor bedroom you see in independent films; cream carpet, white bedsheets, tall potted plant in one corner. There's a dresser with each item carefully laid out on top like a migrant worker's apple box: hairbrush, aftershave, wristwatch, all in one neat row.

Quite incidentally Dean seems to recall Aidan having a line of flash-lit polaroids stuck to his bedroom wall like some moony teenage girl. He wonders which is worse.

“The windows are gorgeous,” Dean continues, ambling over. He wants to touch one smooth pane but fingerprints on such pretty glass would be a sin. “You have a great view, overlooking the park like this.”

“You really get the best of it first thing in the morning,” says Richard. Then he cuts himself off, and when Dean turns he sees Richard's blushing again, as though he's just said something particularly incriminating.

Dean smiles. Strangely, he finds himself liking Richard even more. He's never really gone for shy guys, but that's only because the confident ones always elbow their way to the front. Now that he and Richard have, for all intents and purposes, been forced together, Dean finds he actually rather likes the timid front. Especially on someone so bloody big and handsome. It's a bit like on Escape to the Country, when the snooty couple who've decided a decade in advance that they want a detached thatched cottage in Norwich with a kitchen island and a donkey pen get shown the Mystery House – say, a windmill in Wymondham – and everything they thought they were attracted to is challenged.

Jared Turner is the thatched cottage and donkey pen. Richard is the windmill.

They go into Richard's 'main living room' afterwards. Dean isn't sure at what point in life this wisdom was imparted on him, but he's known for a long time that you're rich when you've got two living rooms and one of them is upstairs. You know you're _really_ rich when you refer to one of those living rooms as a “family room”.

Richard does not, as it happens, refer to one of them as a family room, most likely because he hasn't got a family. But if he _did_ have a family, this would definitely be the mightiest family room of them all.

There is a big, winding L-shaped sofa, towering bay windows overlooking the street and a _ridiculous_ television. He didn't expect that. Richard doesn't really seem the telly type. Unlike Dean's entertainment area, which is 80% DVDs and perhaps 20% books - with barely any of those books actually being novels - Richard's alcoves are more like 10% DVDs and 90% books, with the vast majority of those books being novels. Big, heavy looking things with glossy white spines and modern art covers and complicated names like  _The Doors of Perception_ and  _Voyage au bout de la nuit_. The last book Dean read was _Elmer the Patchwork Elephant_ , when Adam paid him a visit accompanied by his bossy six-year-old nephew.

Richard only has one shelf dedicated to films, and from the looks of it most of them are documentary box-sets. Still, the room isn't exactly sparse in any other respect. In fact, it doesn't look like one man lives alone here at all. Framed pictures dot the mantel piece and window sills, and various work shirts and ties are draped over the chairs, and a week's worth of post is stacked messily on the bureau. Unlike the bedroom, which screams 'bachelor', the living room actually looks... well, _lived_ in.

They sit in front of the fireplace sipping this rich, syrupy wine, and Dean knows he'll have a tiny hangover in the morning because, after Jägerbombs, red wine is Enemy No. 2. But it's not like he's going to refuse. Tipsy Dean is significantly more lovable than Sober Dean, and the half bottle at dinner already sent him a little on his way. He might as well continue. As long as he doesn't spiral all the way into the infamous Drunk Dean routine, he'll be fine.

Tipsy Richard, as it turns out, is rather sweet too.

“You have lovely eyes, by the way,” he says out of the blue. “Is that... that's alright to say, isn't it?”

Dean lets out a pathetic giggle, feeling himself redden stupidly under the attention. “That's fine, Richard.”

“Kind of a light cadet blue. You look like the sort of person whose eyes change colour.”

“Yes, they do! When I go swimming they turn green. Or when I...” Cry. He was going to say cry. “I thought it was cool until a friend of mine pointed out that the redness from the chlorine was just making the green stand out, and I should probably get some eye drops.”

“You know, in Ancient Egypt, colour was an integral part of everything in life. If someone's eyes changed colour, it meant that they themselves were mysterious, an enigma.”

Is that flirting? That's definitely flirting. Dean uncrosses his legs and shifts a tiny bit closer on the couch, subtly masking it as an innocent stretch. Classic.

“Hmm,” he says, “did you make that up?”

“No, of course not!”

“I can see six BBC2 Ancient Egypt documentaries on the shelf over there.”

“Well then, you know I’m telling the truth.”

It's not even a proper joke, but Dean still laughs like he's on his fifth pint. “Are you well-travelled, Rich?”

“Not nearly as much as I'd like to be. I used to get away quite a lot, but recently I've just...” He shrugs, not finishing. “What about you? I can just imagine you strolling around the pyramids with a camera.”

Interesting. Does Richard imagine strolling round the pyramids with him? That's the implication, surely. He's never really fancied Egypt, but clearly Richard is something of an enthusiast.

“In a white linen shirt and one of those floppy straw sun hats?” says Dean. “Raising my arm for a photo to make it look like I'm pressing my finger to the top of a pyramid?” He sees Richard's expression change. “Oh God, you've got a photo like that, haven't you?”

“I was a student,” Richard protests. “And it’s the Taj Mahal, actually.”

“India? You _are_ well-travelled.”

“That's something coming from a New Zealander who moved to England. Why _did_ you move, anyway?” As soon as he says it, Richard frowns. “I'm sorry, that was a personal question. You don't have to answer.”

“It was just circumstance,” says Dean. He necks his wine and leans towards the coffee table for more. His head spins a little and he has to steady himself by touching Richard's arm for a moment. “Wow, that hit me fast.”

“Would you like some water?”

God, how embarrassing. Dean shakes his head quickly. “I'm fine, honestly. It's Friday night and I'm getting a cab home anyway. Speaking of, just tell me when you'd like me gone.”

“No, no, I'd like you to stay. I mean, as long as you want to. If you'd rather... God, I'm making a right mess of this, aren't I?”

“No. Of what? You're not making a mess of anything.”

“It's just been a while since I've... dated.”

“Me too. I guess that's why Adam thought we'd be a good match, we're both as clueless as each other!”

Dean regrets the remark immediately – well, hell, he doesn't want Richard to think Dean's implying he's _stupid_ – but if anything Richard seems to relax at the words, as though comforted by the fact that, really, Dean is as hopeless at this whole flirting game as he is.

Richard looks straight at him. Bloody hell, he must _know_ how striking those eyes of his are. Dean feels like they're boring right into him. His mouth goes dry. This is the part where the light dims, and the scene ripples into a low drum and bass track, and the audience cheers and catcalls as Dean and Richard slowly lean in. What actually happens is Dean moves forward too fast and almost ends up spilling red wine all over Richard's L-shaped sofa.

By some miraculous power – no doubt a result of the intervention of God himself – both the sofa and Richard stay wine-free, though a few drops spill on to Dean's hand and he quickly licks them off with a mumbled apology.

Then a hand, warm and soft, comes up slowly to press against the side of Dean's face, and Dean shivers with it all the way down to his toes.

“I'm not very good at this sort of thing,” Richard murmurs, face close enough for the sweet, syrupy scent of his breath to ghost over Dean's mouth.

Dean goes very still, considering his next move carefully. And though he doesn't quite shrug, he still thinks _well, memento mori, Deano_ , and he leans in and presses his lips against Richard's.

-

“I don't understand what happened, Adam. One minute we were kissing, everything was fine, next he was pushing me off and saying we should call it a night.”

“Yes, but how did he say it? Did he say it like 'erm, Dean, I think, er, we'd better call it a night' or did he run his thumb over your lips and smile at you and say 'if we don't call it a night now I don't think I'll be able to stop'?”

“Well, neither. It wasn't that awkward _or_ that romantic. It was just sort of... I don't know, he sounded disappointed. Like he expected it to be better.”

“Oh, Dean.” Adam stops right in the middle of the aisle at Homebase and wraps Dean up in a hug, leaving their trolley to go wobbling off into a shelf full of plaster tubs. “I'm sure it wasn't anything you did wrong. He was probably just overwhelmed by kissing such a stunner.”

“Hm.” Dean is not convinced. “He did say I have light cadet blue eyes.”

“I don't know what light cadet blue is, but that sounds wonderful.”

Dean picks a catalogue off a nearby shelf and flips to the paint samples. “It's a bit like this colour here.”

“Ooh, that'd look smashing in the bathroom.”

“I thought you wanted the toile de jouy wallpaper? Isn't that what we're here for?”

“I suppose.”

“Trust me, Adam, it'll look amazing.”

“I do trust you,” he says, sounding as if he doesn't trust Dean at all. But what does Adam know? He wanted to paint the bathroom orange. “Anyway, tell me more about what happened with Richard.”

“Nothing, that's it. Dinner, wine, kissing, mortified, home. I was in bed by nine thirty, Adam. _Nine thirty_.”

“Well, you weren't exactly expecting to shag him, were you?”

“I might have. Why not? I can fuck on the first date, you know. If I wanted to. I could actually do that.”

Dean has, for the record, never fucked on the first date. He has, in fact, never fucked a man he was actively 'dating'. He and Jared just sort of morphed into a couple once it became too sexually frustrating for them to just be friends. Dean isn't even entirely sure it is possible for gay men to date, at least not in that simpering hetero rom-com kind of way. He's certain it's a myth.

Last night with Richard supports this theory. God, it's embarrassing to think about it. Everything was going well. Too well. Dean should have known it would end in disaster. They were kissing on the couch. It was getting serious, they'd even put their wine down, and Richard's big hands were cradling Dean's face like he wanted to keep him there. They were entering their first minute and Dean was debating between tongue and no tongue, just about deciding on _yes, okay, a little bit of tongue_ , when Richard put one of those broad hands on his chest and pushed him gently away, anxiety pooling in his big, blue eyes.

“ _Maybe we should call it a night, Dean. I've just remembered I've an early start tomorrow.”_

What? What happened to “I'd like you to stay as long as you want to”? And what's the deal with people shoving Dean out early with the excuse of early starts and errands to run? Is he really that bad a kisser? His kissing was the one thing Jared was always complimentary of. Perhaps he was luring him into a false sense of security; if he hasn't got kissing he's got nothing!

Adam sighs, giving Dean's shoulder a pat. “Wait for him to call, see what happens and _then_ decide whether or not your world's falling apart. Now come on, let's get this wallpaper and we'll go back to mine. I'm going to make you crackle cakes.”

“Oh, Adam. Are you sure you don't wanna marry me instead of Graham?”

The reason Adam certainly does not want to call off his wedding with Graham becomes abundantly clear once they get back to Adam's house. Graham is standing sipping coffee in the kitchen in a white vest and paint-smattered jeans, bits of plaster all over him, looking like something straight out of a help-around-the-house porno. Jesus, those biceps are wasted on a man who works in insurance.

“We're back!” Adam trills, and he pulls Graham into this movie star kiss that lasts far too long for a couple who've been together three years. Dean averts his gaze, pretending to be vastly interested in the unripe bananas in Adam's fruit bowl. Wow, so green. So pretty.

“Where's Lloyd?” asks Adam when he decides he needs to breathe.

“Took another piss on the Afghan rug, so I tied him to his post in the garden,” Graham replies.

Adam tuts. “We seriously need to do something about that, he's costing us a fortune in salt to treat that rug. Anyway, we've got the wallpaper, look.” He takes the pretty paper out of a carrier bag. “What do you think?”

Graham appraises said pretty paper. “It's, erm...”

“Dean says it's the height of Victorian design.”

Dean nods quickly. “Absolutely. With the half-pannelling it'll look great.”

“Well, if this is the one you want.” Graham takes the roll of paper and bops Adam gently on the nose with it and smiles, and Dean thinks seriously about throwing up all over those unripe bananas.

“How are the boys getting on in there?” Adam asks, flicking on the kettle.

“We finished ripping out all the units, but Cormac's headed off home. Got plaster dust in his eye, the silly bugger.”

“Oh God, d'you think he's going to sue us?”

“Course not! Nothing a few eye drops won't sort out. He's such a bloody slacker, that lad. I don't know why we're paying him.”

“Nevermind. At least you got the units out before he went home. How's it looking in there?”

“A tip,” Graham says cheerfully. “But things have to get worse before they get better, don't they? Everything's going fine.”

“Great! I'll be up to have a look at it in a bit. Dean, will you fetch me the Rice Krispies from the pantry?”

Graham heads back upstairs to continue work on the demolished en-suite bathroom and Dean sets to work helping Adam mix up a sinful bowl of melted Nutella and butter. Crackle cakes, like shellfish and jasmine, are one of nature's aphrodisiacs. It's been proven or something. They leave them to cool in the fridge for twenty minutes, then Adam makes more tea and darts off upstairs to fetch his remaining worker. Dean sits at the breakfast bar and picks the mini marshmallows out of his cake, not actually eating any. Truthfully, he's still feeling a bit queasy from last night.

Then Adam walks back in, and Dean suddenly feels sick for a different reason entirely.

“Aidan?” he says, and Aidan – the bastard! – actually has the cheek to look _cheerful_.

“Dean!”

Aidan is standing behind Adam in that _stupid_ yellow t-shirt, covered in white dust, bits of it catching in those ridiculous curls.

Adam looks between them. “Do you two know each other?”

“No,” says Dean, at exactly the same time Aidan says, “Yes.”

Adam looks confused.

“Well,” Dean says quickly, “we met at your party, Adam, but we didn't talk much. Did we, Aidan?”

_**Did** we, Aidan?_

“Oh, er, no. No, we did not.”

Well, at least Aidan catches on quickly. But he's grinning at Dean, just, and when Adam moves to obtain both tea and cake, Aidan takes the opportunity to sidle over and press his plastery arm against Dean's. Dean tries to move away and ends up bashing his hip against the cast iron cooker.

“Would you like a crackle cake, Aidan?” asks Adam. “Chocolate and hazelnut and marshmallow, fresh out the oven! Well, fridge.”

“Ah, go on then,” says Aidan, like Adam's _really_ twisting his arm. He throws a wink in Dean's direction. “I've always had a terrible sweet tooth.”

Is this really happening? And if so, why?

“This is mine and Dean's special recipe,” says Adam. “When we lived next door to each other, we used to try and make desserts using only what we already had in our cupboards. I think this is the best recipe we came up with. The worst was that brandy popcorn cake, Dean, d'you remember?”

“How could I forget? I'm still having melted microwave nightmares,” and then Dean stuffs half his own cake in his mouth so he doesn't have to speak anymore.

“I'm not much of a cook myself, but these look great,” says Aidan, picking out a marshmallow, raising it to his lips and _sucking_.

Adam beams at him, as pleased as a doting grandmother. “Ah, what can I say? Jennifer and Clarissa in the making, Dean and I. Anyway, I'm taking some up to Graham,” says Adam. “Back in a jiffy.”

He takes a tray, pops a cake and a cup of tea on it and trundles off out of the room. Dean tries to stop him and ends up choking on a Rice Krispie.

“Wow,” Aidan drawls, snapping at a piece of cake and crunching it loudly, “you looked mortified when I walked in. Should I be offended?”

“Look,” says Dean, still coughing like a dying man, “if we'd run into each other in the street, it'd be fine. But Adam can't know, okay?”

“Can't know what?”

“You know what.”

“I don't. Tell me.”

Dean looks for a tea towel to whack him with but, coming up short, has to settle on hissing, “Shut up, Aidan.”

“You were much nicer on your back.”

“Shut up!”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Aidan mimics, and this time Dean finds the dishcloth hanging over the kitchen tap, picks it up and whacks Aidan over the shoulder with it, leaving a wet patch in the plaster. “Oi!”

“Well, you deserve it. What are you even doing here anyway?”

“I'm helping Adam and Graham renovate their bathroom.”

“Why?!”

“Because they asked me to,” Aidan says calmly, and he picks off another marshmallow, pops it in his mouth, then starts scraping at a bit of dried Nutella with his fingernail.

“Will you stop playing with that and just eat it?” says Dean. “You're not a builder.”

“I'm not building anything. I'm ripping stuff out, I'm disposing of various bits of porcelain and, in a few days, I shall be plastering, and wallpapering, and tiling, and sticking panelling to the walls. Is that alright with you?”

“And you're qualified to do all that, are you?”

“Not a qualified decorator, but I know what I'm doing if that's what you mean. I've done it before. And I do it all for cheaps.”

“You were a waiter the other day!”

“You were nice the other day. Funny how things turn out, isn't it?”

Dean's just about to retort when Adam comes hopping back into the kitchen, grinning all over his face.

“It's mental how big that room looks now there's nothing in it! Wasn't sure the new tub would fit but it definitely will. Thank you for doing such a splendid job, Aidan.”

Dean wouldn't be surprised if Adam came up and pinched Aidan on his little bastard cheeks. He doesn't, but he does come and give Aidan a hug, and Aidan grins at Dean over Adam's shoulder, patting his back and saying, “You're welcome, buddy.”

Dean wants to tell him not to get too excited, Adam hugs _everyone_ , but now Aidan's gulping down the last of his cake and wiping his hands on his jeans and backing towards the door.

“Thanks for the food. I'd better get back up there and help Graham out.”

When he's gone, Adam swivels round to Dean, eyes rolling into the back of his head. “He is _so_ good-looking, isn't he?”

“No!” Dean blurts out, so abruptly Adam blinks at him.

“Really? Thought he'd be right up your street. Tall, dark, handsome. Accent's to _die_ for, don't you think? Like having Colin Farrell chucking my bathroom sink in a skip.”

“Well, I doubt Colin Farrell has such atrocious attire.”

“Yeah, true. Fashion sense is a bit zany but with a face like that you can hardly complain, can you?” says Adam. “And anyway, _you've_ no room to talk, Dean O'Gorman, I know for a fact you still haven't thrown that raggedy blue t-shirt of yours away, the one that doesn't even stay on your shoulders anymore. Makes you look like Jennifer Beals, Flashdance era. So there you go, lack of fashion sense, something you two have got in common. Hey, there's a thought – I should've set you and Aidan up at the party instead of you and Richard! Let me tell you, if there's one person who isn't gonna push you off him while you're having a snog it's Aidan Turner.”


	6. Chapter 6

Dean's never quite sure if he lives in the future or the past. He certainly doesn't live in the present. Well, technically he does. He exists on a day to day basis, metaphysical realism, the-matrix-is-a-lie and all that, but his mind seems constantly torn between hoping for the future and yearning for the past.

And he's known this for quite some time, of course, but it hits him most substantially on Sunday morning when he opens Facebook to see Jared's updated his relationship status from 'in a relationship' to 'engaged'.

Right, well. That's that then. No really, good for him. Them. Good for them. Marriage is a beautiful thing, the harmonious union of two kindred spirits. But, you know, harmonious unions and kindred spirits aside, there's no reason Dean should even _have_ Jared on Facebook. Seriously, they've been separated for six months now, and Jared lives quite literally on the other side of the world these days. And clearly he has well and truly moved on. Why stay connected?

If they continue to be Facebook friends, Dean might just come home one Friday after the Day From Hell at work and strip off all his clothes and sit in his boxers in front of the gas heater eating a huge bowl of microwaveable carbonara intended for two and polishing off a bottle of red and going through all of Jared's Facebook photos, sneering at his skinny, rat-eyed new girlfriend and eventually falling asleep from a combination of wine, drunken laughter and gas heater fumes.

Like, that's one situation which could hypothetically happen.

And anyway, staying connected is a perfect example of _living in the past_. Which is exactly what Dean's trying not to do. But God, Jared doesn't make it easy. His Facebook has still got their photo album from Greece, and that was three years ago!

Dean wonders if Jared's kept the album up as some heartless reminder of what they had together, or if he really has just forgotten it's there. It's an easy mistake to make; Jared's got twenty-four other albums posted, after all. Not that Dean's counted or even really looked at them much.

Naturally, Dean is tagged in a lot of the Greece photos. Well, it was their holiday together. He's thought about removing the tags, but that might seem petty. And anyway, he doesn't look half bad in some of them. Tanned and fairly young and actually kind of happy. _They_ were happy, weren't they? They must have been, once.

Dean remembers that vacation more often than he'd like to. Unless you count moving to England and weekend trips to the Turner family summer house in Whangaroa, it was the only time they actually went away together. First time either of them had ever flown in a plane. Twenty-three goddamned hours, but it was worth it. Worth it for that boneless blue seascape, the hotel water bed, the yacht rides and the hulking cliffs and the _food_. Worth it for that stupid day in that stupid hammock when Jared kissed Dean's bare chest and drunkenly confessed, “I think you're made of the stars. They say the people you love are made of stardust, right? I think you're out of this world, my gorgeous little alien.”

Sappy, smarmy, immature little bastard. Not charming at all. Dean should just delete Jared off Facebook right this instant. He even gets as far as hovering over the button to do so, but at the last minute he remembers how much he hates the food arrangement in the tin cupboard and he has to go and reorganise it all.

In the evening, around nine, when the silence in the flat is beginning to _ring_ , he decides to call Adam. It's a while before Adam picks up, and when he does he sounds like a dying man.

“You were having sex, weren't you?” Dean says flatly.

“No!” Adam gasps, clearly on the verge of going into cardiac arrest.

“Adam, we've talked about this, you don't have to pick up if you're having sex.”

“If you text, I can leave it till later. If you call on the landline, I assume something terrible has happened.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“I assume something terrible has happened whoever it is. Especially at this time of night. Who even uses the landline for friends anymore?”

“Sorry, just... kind of wanted to actually speak to you.”

“What's wrong?”

“I just have a quick question and then you can get back to whatever you were doing.”

“Go on...”

Dean pauses, pressing his fingertips into the soft hem of his pillowcase. He hesitates. “Do you think a guy is under obligation to tell his ex when he's gone and gotten engaged?”

And Adam sighs so sadly Dean thinks he can feel the harsh breath of it all the way down the line.

“Oh buddy,” says Adam, like he really gives a damn, and somehow it helps a bit.

 

-

Things perk up during the week: Richard calls to arrange another date. They're going to get coffee on Saturday and go to the park or something equally sweet, which is either a Very Good Thing or Very Very Bad. Because everyone knows day-time dates signify either one of two things: 1) progress! or 2) a break-up.

Not that he and Richard are in a relationship, but after what happened last week Dean won't be surprised if Richard sits him down in Bluebell's Cafe and tells him that things “just aren't working out”, that Dean is “really great” but the “spark isn't there”.

So Dean isn't getting his hopes up. Much. The working week drags as working weeks at Winter & Co are wont to do, and by Friday afternoon he's sort of given up trying altogether. James has bought trusty Sophocles cupcakes, and Dean sits gnawing morosely at one, flipping through the latest local auction catalogue. They always have them lying around the office because so many of their clients inquire about renovating auction properties; crumbling terraces in Hackney and Peckham where lonely old ladies have died or struggling single mums couldn't afford to pay the rent. Pretty tragic really, but _so_ many golden opportunities for property renovators.

It's always been a secret dream of Dean's to quit his job and bid on property, build up a portfolio, make dying houses beautiful again _and_ earn thousands while doing it. But it's one of those infuriating pursuits where you need a great hunk of money before you can even get started, and that's something which Dean just hasn't got.

So for now it's a pipe dream, will probably always _be_ a pipe dream. When he first realised the aspiration at eighteen years old, he imagined he'd have at least a couple of renovations under his belt by twenty-five. Well, he's thirty now, and all he's doing is sitting in a consultants' office in south London, eating a cupcake and running his finger lovingly over an image of a three-bed semi in Stockwell with a guide price of £75,000.

He's not even sure he has enough change for the bus home.

His mobile rings, vibrating on the desk and jolting him out of his thoughts. He frowns at the number, but since nothing else is going on in the office anyway he crosses into the gents to answer it, locking the door behind himself.

“Hello...?”

“Hi Dean! It's Aidan. From the other day. Well, and last week.”

Dean can _feel_ his own frown deepening, more in confusion than anything else.

“How did you get my number?”

“Easy, I just did 1471 when you called me that time.”

“That's... sort of creepy.”

“Hey, stick a 141 on the start of a number before you call someone if you don't want to get stalked. Anyway, I was wondering, what are you up to later?”

Ah, that old trap. Which Dean falls straight into.

“Not a lot...”

“Brilliant! Want to come for a drink with me?”

“What?”

“With me. A drink. Come for?”

“Aidan, I'm at work.”

“Well I'm not. Anyway, I didn't mean right _now_. I meant, you know, tonight.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “The thing is, Aid –”

“No no no, before you make up a hasty excuse about how you need to stay in tonight and put all your plaid shirts in colour order or something, hear me out. Look, I know we kind of got off on the wrong foot. Well, we got off on a great foot actually, then it all went a bit downhill, didn't it? I dunno why you were so worked up about me being at Adam's, I'm just doing him a few favours. Not like I was stalking you or anything.”

_Yes, Aidan, because this sort of behaviour isn't stalkerish at all._

“A-a-a-anyway,” Aidan goes on, “Adam's sort of invited me to his wedding, and I really wanna go only I don't know anyone. There's no reason why you and me can't be mates, though. I like you! And I mean, it wouldn't be a _date_. I haven't had a date since, like, 1999 or something.”

Right, because the only thing stopping it from being a date is Aidan's lack of interest in conventional relationships, rather than the fact that Dean is already seeing somebody. Dean sort of wants to say this. Instead he goes, “Well... where did you have in mind?”

 

-

Heaven is where Aidan has in mind. Except it's just about the least heavenly place Dean has ever been to, with its manky, sticky floors and pungent stench of Red Bull and theatrical smoke. More akin to Hell, really, though Dean's not sure Hell has two hundred half-dressed men grinding on each other in sync. Although actually, if Dean's homophobic grandfather is to be believed...

Anyway, he can't see Aidan anywhere which is just great, and he can't really see anything properly which is even better, and why didn't he stay in with iPlayer and a Ristorante pizza and the half-bowl of frozen banoffee pie Adam brought round on Wednesday?

Oh yes, because he's still trying to pretend he enjoys doing this sort of thing, that monogamy is boring and he's pretty enough to pull one of these stringy, waif-like men. Actually, not all the men in here are stringy and waif-like. He can see a few Graham types, too: balding and impossibly muscular. But unlike Graham their grins are strangely unsettling, and Dean dodges a whole row of them in favour of the bar.

And ah yes, here is Aidan, sitting at the bar, looking... either incredible or homeless, Dean can't decide. He's wearing tight black jeans and a dark grey Rolling Stones t-shirt, but the jeans are ripped at the knees and the t-shirt is raggedy and loose around the neck, and Dean isn't sure if it's the kind of scruffy wear-and-tear chic you pay for or if Aidan just can't look after his clothes.

He looks to be in the process of chatting the barman up, but when he notices Dean he turns all his attention on to him instead, and the barman rolls his eyes and wanders off to serve someone else.

“So you decided to come!” says Aidan. “Thought you might bail on me in favour of re-organising your kitchen cupboards or something.”

Shit. How does he know about that?

“Well, if I bailed on you I wouldn't get to witness the cream of London night life, would I?”

“Dean, I get the impression you don't approve of my chosen venue of romantic seduction.” Something must be showing on Dean's face, because suddenly Aidan laughs. “I don't mean with you, don't panic. No, Tattoo Sleeves over there by the staircase.”

Dean glances in the direction of a Vin Diesel lookalike. “He looks like an escaped convict.”

“I know!” Aidan replies, in a tone of voice which suggests he rather likes men who look like escaped convicts. “Anyway, let me get you a drink,” and rather than asking what Dean wants Aidan gets them a couple of silver Tequila shots, and Dean wonders just how drunk they're supposed to be getting.

“Aidan, listen,” he says, once they're sitting next to each other and Dean's trying valiantly not to retch from the poisoned-sweat aftertaste of the shot, “about the other day... look, I'm sorry for being so short with you.”

“Can't help the way you were born, mate.”

“Mature.”

“Sorry, do go on.”

“That was it really. Just sorry, and...” Dean shrugs. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Multiple apologies accepted. No I mean, it makes sense. If you're already having a bad day then the last thing you want is a one night stand turning up in your best mate's kitchen.”

“How d'you know I was having a bad day?”

“I dunno, you just looked like you were. You were snapping and sighing and not eating and, like, hitting me with stuff.”

“You're way too perceptive.”

“Oh come on, Dean. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when someone tells you to shut up and whacks you with a dishcloth they're not in the most glorious of moods. Unless I really do just have an instantly negative effect on you, but so far tonight we seem to be doing okay, don't we?”

Indeed they do, and it improves massively once they've downed another few drinks and Aidan's decided he's going to invite a couple of blokes from the other end of the bar over. Not Vin Diesel – he seems to have disappeared – but two more equally banal looking male specimens, clearly all impossibly toned muscle and no brains.

No, that's cruel and prejudiced. Dean really needs to stop being cruel and prejudiced. They might be perfectly smart guys. They might not be here for a hook-up; they might be looking for philosophical debate or equally intelligent conversation or _love_! They might be –

Okay, no, they really are just all impossibly toned muscle and no brains. It soon becomes abundantly clear that the one Aidan fancies – the better looking one – is equally as interested in him, so Dean and the other guy are obligated to make small talk and let them get on with flirting.

The man Dean has been assigned to keep company is six foot of Paco Rabanne Pour Homme and bad conversation. Well, clearly he thinks it's great conversation and clearly he thinks his aftershave is virile and seductive. His name is Jack and within forty minutes he's put his meaty hand on Dean's thigh three times, and Dean's pretty sure the last one had a hefty amount of squeeze in it. Dean deals with this by making several sarcastic remarks which go straight over Jack's square head and getting steadily drunk first on vodka and coke and eventually just plain vodka.

By the time an hour has passed, Dean is fairly intoxicated and has not told Jack a single thing about himself other than his name. Now Jack wants to know his age.

“I'd say no more than forty,” Jack decides, nodding. “Mid to late thirties maybe.”

“What?” Dean splutters. “Mate, I'll have you know I'm thirty! _Recently_!”

“Oh right, sorry. Must be the lights in here.”

“Must be you being _stupid_ , more like.”

“Alright, alright, no need to be like that. Said I was sorry, didn't I? Anyway, didn't mean it in a _bad_ way. I'd still give you a go.”

Clearly, Jack tries to live up to his name by coming across as a bit of a Jack the lad. His Cockney accent is like something from a bad school pantomime, and his flirting techniques are pretty typical of a panto villain, too. Dean squirms away and almost ends up falling off his barstool, and that's when Aidan glances over, coyly twirling a little cocktail umbrella between thumb and forefinger, and raises his eyebrows.

“Alright there, Deano?”

“He's fine,” Jack answers for him. “Aren't you, pal?”

“No,” Dean mumbles. It might be useful to add at this point that when Dean is drunk – like, really drunk, past Loveable Tipsy Dean and just straight into Inebriated Dean – he turns _petulant_. He does not like Jack and he does not like whoever is chatting up Aidan and he wants more to drink and he wants that little umbrella Aidan's got and he's hungry, too, he's suddenly _craving_ chicken nuggets and wants to eat about six hundred of them but instead he's sitting in this crappy gay club with a massive wanker who keeps groping his leg and thinks he's forty.

“How old are you anyway?” Dean suddenly demands, swivelling on his stool to face said massive wanker.

“Thirty-five,” Jack replies easily, which means he's older than that because men who try to chat you up in bars always lie about their age, no exceptions. “But you know what they say: you're only as old as you feel, aren't ya?”

Dean snorts. “Bollocks.”

“It's true,” and the guy leans forward and slides that wandering hand on to Dean's leg again, “you're never too old to feel young.”

“Why are we even having this conversation? Are you suggesting I need to _feel_ young because I'm _not_ young?”

“Erm, no, I was just –”

“I was twenty-nine like two days ago or something. You know _nothing_ , Jack. You know jack!” and then Dean finally loses it altogether and bursts into wild laughter, stunned by his own wit.

Jack, to his credit, is fairly unperturbed. “You're a bit ridiculous,” he says, but he says it fondly, as though being ridiculous is just about the sexiest thing he's ever heard of. “Listen, this place is giving me a right headache. Need to hop to the lav, but when I get back you and me should head off, yeah? We don't have to go to mine, we can just go somewhere else. But it looks like your mate's gonna get off with my mate so it makes sense really, you and me, dunnit?”

_Erm well, Jack mate, I don't think it does..._

Jack has headed off to the gents before Dean can voice this thought. He turns back to his drink, perplexed. Why does Jack want to hook up with him? Because presumably he does. Presumably when he says “you and me should head off” he means “you and me should go get down and dirty in the back seat of my Ford Focus”. But why? He doesn't know anything about Dean. He doesn't know the likelihood that Dean is a raging maniac wanting to slaughter him.

Is this love now? Is this the 21st century's idea of what constitutes romance? Half a dozen vodkas and a few thigh squeezes? Dean desperately wants to be away from here. He wants to be... in a restaurant somewhere, eating. With Richard! He wants to be with Richard. Oh Richard, lovely Richard, lovely gentleman, with his manners and his blushing and his triple hung sash windows.

Why is Dean here? He isn't like Aidan. And there's no point pretending he is. He gets up and leaves.

Somehow he makes it down the club stairs without breaking his neck, and it's only when he's standing out in the summery night air, wondering if McDonald's is open twenty-four hours a day, that someone taps him on the shoulder. He thinks at first it's Jack and gets ready to run, but when he turns Aidan's looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement and maybe a smidgen of disappointment, like Dean's just done something seriously uncool.

Then again, Aidan's now got the little cocktail umbrella perched behind his ear, so he's not exactly the height of all that is hip either.

“What are you doing out here?” Dean slurs. “Aren't you supposed to be slobberin' all over Brian? Or whatever his name is?”

“Damien.”

Dean waves a hand. “Whatever.”

“You're actually so drunk, this is hilarious.”

“Don't laugh, you dick, I haven't had _that_ many.”

“Oh, I think Jake kept you going with a steady supply back there.”

“Jake? His name is Jake?” Dean pauses. “Well, fuck.”

Dean's aware that he should feel embarrassed, standing here, swaying slightly, in front of Aidan, but all he feels is woozy and careless and hungry.

“His name is indeed Jake,” says Aidan, grinning, “and he's going to be back from the bathroom soon and he'll wonder where you are, so maybe we should get out of here before he unleashes the fury.”

“He did say he does two hundred bench presses a day,” Dean mumbles.

“Oof, watch out, sounds like Thor's gonna be coming after you.”

“Shut up, Aidan.”

“Shut up, Dean,” Aidan mimics, and then he slings an arm around Dean's shoulders and somehow they start walking down the street together, away from Heaven.

“Wait,” Dean says, when they've rounded one street corner, “what about your buddy Damien? You not gonna, like... you know.”

“Nah. Twenty minutes in he asked me when I was last screened for STIs. And I'm pretty sure he thinks my name's Alex.”

“Charmer.”

“Better than yours. Yours looked like Edward Norton in American History X.”

“No, he didn't! Anyway, yours looked like... Bruce Willis. And not sexy, chiselled Die Hard 2 Bruce Willis either, I'm talking freaky pervert Moonrise Kingdom Willis... that's what your guy looked like.”

Aidan _roars_ with laughter at this.

“Yeah, okay, except Damien had a lot less hair and glasses and a lot more pecs and sex appeal. I mean, you've gotta admit he was pretty stunning even for a smarmy wanker.”

“Why don't you go back to him then?”

“Nah,” says Aidan, “I'd rather stay with you, you freak.”

“ _I'm_ the freak? I'm the freak. Okay.”

“You're like a small, grumpy alien.”

“Oh, that's a nice thing to say.”

“A small, Kiwi alien?”

“Yeah, the 'grumpy' part wasn't really what I was taking issue with, Turner.”

“I don't remember telling you my last name.”

“Adam told me it.” Dean pauses, as they wander leisurely along a street flooded by the lights of a thousand kebab shops, Aidan's arm still around his shoulders. “You have the same last name as my ex.”

“Is that a bad omen?”

“I dunno yet. Is McDonald's open twenty-four hours a day?”

“I can't tell if that was some philosophical rhetorical question or –”

“No, I just wanted to know. I'm hungry.”

It is not, as it turns out, open twenty-four hours a day but since it's not eleven yet they find an open McDonald's on a fairly deserted cobbled street corner and order colossal boxes of chicken nuggets. They eat outside, sitting in a nearby park on the grass, the night air mild and smelling distinctly of weed.

The junk food helps Dean sober up a little, and he thinks he should feel strange for sitting out here with Aidan but he doesn't. Aidan's sort of nosey and weird, and it relaxes Dean to the point that soon he's leaning heavily on Aidan's shoulder, not even bothered that he's a childish drunk or that he's just polished off twenty chicken nuggets in record time because he knows without asking that Aidan could literally not care less.

And that's just... nice.

“Why did you move to England then?” Aidan asks. “Bet there's a great story behind that.” He dips two chicken nuggets almost entirely in ketchup as he speaks, then shoves them both in his mouth. It shouldn't be sexy but it sort of is, in a manly, primal kind of way. Chicken McNuggets. Primal. Dean is still drunk.

“I wouldn't call it a great story,” he says. “Very mundane, really. Work stuff. Why did you move here?”

“I dunno. I'd never been before. Have you got any food left? I've finished all mine.”

“Sorry.”

Aidan tosses his box aside and flops down on to his back, like he did that day in Adam's garden. He licks a bit of ketchup from his finger and says, “London always seemed _really_ glamorous to me. But when you think of moving here, you think you're gonna live in Camden or Islington or one of those big fuck-off houses in Notting Hill. Not Brixton.”

“Maybe one day you'll end up in one of those big fuck-off houses in Notting Hill,” says Dean, lying down beside him. “Though they're not all that, you know.”

“Really?”

“Nah, okay, they're pretty cool.”

“When've you been in Notting Hill houses?”

Dean shrugs. “I know people.”

He can see Aidan smiling at him out of the corner of his eye. Then again, Aidan always seems to be smiling, so it probably shouldn't be taken as much of an achievement.

“You're a mystery, Dean,” Aidan says after a while. “I like that you don't tell me anything about yourself, even when I ask. Makes it seem like you've got something interesting to hide.”

“I really don't.”

“Then what gives?”

“We've met, what, three times?”

“Yeah, and each time you've made sure I learn the bare minimum about you. You don't talk much, do you?”

“I think you talk enough for the both of us, mate.”

Dean immediately feels harsh for saying that, even though he doesn't mean it in a bad way. He sort of likes Aidan's constant stream of chatter. The more he does it, the less likely it becomes that Dean will open his own mouth and say something ridiculous.

“Stars are out tonight,” Aidan observes after a while.

“Mhm.”

“Okay, not a fan of stars then. Which is unfortunate, really, since I know loads of constellations and Greek mythology I could impress you with. So let's see, how else can I woo you...”

“ _Woo_ me?”

“Well yeah,” says Aidan, moving to prop himself up on an elbow, “it's a beautiful summer's night, we're both a bit drunk, lying in the park on our backs. Perfect time to snag a kiss, I'd say.”

“You said this wasn't a date.”

“It's not.” Then Aidan smiles at him, just a quirk of lips this time rather than those sixty-seven thousand white teeth of his, and he raises his eyebrows like he's asking for permission, then dips his head and kisses Dean on the mouth, for quite a long time, with his thumb against Dean's chin and his fingers against his jaw. Aidan's lips are smooth with grease and he tastes like salt, and Dean lifts a hand to tangle his fingers in Aidan's curls before remembering –

“I'm... I can't. Sorry.”

Aidan shrugs, lying back down again. “Okay.”

“I'm sort of seeing someone,” Dean elaborates, bothered by the fact that Aidan hasn't asked why Dean can't kiss him.

“Oh! Cool. Who?”

“Richard, from Adam's party? Remember him? The... the handsome one, you said.” Dean hesitates. “We can still be friends, though.”

And Aidan turns and gives him this really fond, indulgent smile, like there's something obvious Dean's missing out on.

“Dean,” he says, “we'd be friends even if you'd let me carry on kissing you. Right, my back's getting stiff. D'you mind terribly if we go and get more food?”

He stands without waiting for an answer, and Dean picks up their empty boxes and slowly, a little clumsily, trails after him.


	7. Chapter 7

Adam's response is to gasp.

“Dean O'Gorman, you saucy slag! Two blokes at once! Well bugger me, I'm coming over all aflutter!”

Breakfast at Café Moravia today, and Adam is making sure he speaks loudly enough that everyone in the place can hear him. Obviously. There'd be no point saying it at all otherwise.

“Adam, it wasn't _at once_ like some kind of mangy threesome.”

“I know that! And anyway, that wouldn't be nearly as interesting. No, this is all so illicit, so sexy, so... so _cavalier_.”

Dean thinks back to lying on his back in the park, snogging Aidan like a teenager beside empty McDonald's boxes. Hardly cavalier, Adam. Hardly even cute.

“God, you're like a little scarlet woman,” Adam gushes. “Man. Little scarlet man. That sounds like a disease, doesn't it? I prefer woman. You're like a little scarlet woman!”

“I don't know why I tell you anything.”

“No, but I'm glad you do. This is the most interesting part of my week so far, Graham's been a right grump the past few days. Something about a leak coming up through the floor grouting. Dreadful stuff. Anyway, tell me more, Don Juan. Is Aidan a good kisser? God, I can't believe you kissed him.”

“I didn't kiss him, he kissed me.”

“Oh please, Dean, we're not twelve anymore.”

“Yeah well, your reaction to this whole situation suggests otherwise. And anyway, I'm not telling you for the sake of bloody gossip, I'm telling you because...” Why? Why is he telling Adam? Oh right, yes, for advice. “Because I need your advice. On what I should do.”

The thing is, Dean hasn't told Adam everything. He hasn't told him, for instance, that he and Aidan slept together. Adam cannot find out about that, because if he does then Dean will never hear the end of it. Adam will chastise Dean for getting off with one of his waiters at his engagement party, and then he'll want to know exact details (seriously, _exact details_ ) about what happened, and he'll raise his eyebrows suggestively every time someone who is Irish/has a name beginning with A/is a man is mentioned for the next, oh, twenty or so years.

So no. Adam cannot know the extent of Dean's relations with weird Aidan Turner. But he can know about one little _kiss_ with weird Aidan Turner. He can know about that fact that at 4 o'clock this morning Dean came to the numbing realisation that he might fancy weird Aidan Turner just a bit. A lot. A bit of a lot.

“Well, were you drunk when you snogged?” Adam asks around a mouthful of cream cheese bagel.

“A little.”

“And you enjoyed it, presumably.”

Dean chooses his words carefully. “He is a very good kisser.”

“God, I bet he is. What? Don't look at me like that, not as though I'm going to test my theory. I don't know what you're getting all worked up about anyway, you twig. You're thirty years old. You snogged a fit bloke. So what?”

“Aren't you forgetting something?” says Dean. “Richard? The man _you_ set me up with?”

“Is Richard your boyfriend yet?”

“Well, no...”

“And was Richard there when you were with Aidan?”

“No, but –”

“And are you going to go blabbing to Richard about what you _did_ with Aidan? No, even you're not that silly. It's just a drunken, one-off thing. So what's the problem?”

“I like him,” Dean blurts out.

“Who, Richard?”

“Yes.”

Adam grins. “Brilliant!”

“But I think I like Aidan, too. Like, you know. I think I fancy him.”

The smile immediately drops from Adam's face. “Dean, you barely know him. It's not like you've been on dates with him like you have with Richard.”

“So? You declared your love for Graham within thirty minutes of meeting him.”

“That's different.”

“How?”

“Graham's sane! Look, Dean, the last person you want to decide you have a bloody great crush on is Aidan.”

“What's so wrong with Aidan?”

“Nothing's _wrong_ with him, per se. He's lovely, really, he's just a bit... flighty. He's always late to work, and he's _always_ getting himself in trouble, and the things he talks about are just...” Adam lowers his voice a bit, as though anyone in their immediate vicinity actually cares about the flaws of Aidan Turner. “Well, he's very open. With everyone. The other day I was working on a summer display in Debenhams and he came to keep me company on his lunch break. He was telling me about this bloke he met on holiday in Torquay a few months ago, and it was lovely at first, but it took me all of twenty minutes to realise he wasn't talking about the guy's surfboard, he was talking about his _penis_.”

Dean gives a mock gasp. “God forbid a grown man talk about s-e-x.”

“Oh, that's not what I mean and you know it. I'd talk about that kind of thing with _you_ , but we've known each other for years. It's totally different.”

“So he's comfortable with his sexuality,” Dean shrugs, not feeling particularly comfortable himself.

“Yeah, but he's into weird crap too. Karma and Buddhism and, God, probably tantric sex. You know the type.”

Dean tries not to roll his eyes. “He's cultured.”

“For God's sake, Dean, do I need to spell it out for you? He's a drifter. A vagabond, a rolling bloody stone.”

“You were singing his praises a minute ago!”

“I'm not saying I don't like him! He's great for a mate, he's good for a laugh and, you know, a kiss in your case. And he's bloody gorgeous. But he's a leftover, Dean. That starved artist type who doesn't want to – no, can't be _bothered_ to grow up. And I can't have you pining after someone like that. Missing Jared doesn't mean you have to go after _another_ Jared.”

Dean snaps his head up at that. “What? What do you mean by that?”

Adam sighs. “Dean...”

“No, go on, what do you mean?”

“You're allowed to miss Jared. What you're not allowed to do is torture yourself by trying to find his doppelgänger.”

“We were together for six years,” says Dean, feeling himself start to get unreasonably angry. “So I'd say he's my type, and I don't see the harm in looking for someone of a similar type.”

“And look what that type did to you.”

“Why does every conversation always have to come back to Jared?”

“Because everything does with you,” says Adam, wrinkling his nose in what Dean considers an overly-judgemental way. “Look, you see that relationship as if it were something perfect. But he _hurt_ you.”

“I know it wasn't perfect,” Dean mutters, “but I just feel like... I know I haven't spent that much time with Aidan, and I know he's kind of weird, but I just feel comfortable around him. Like I've known him a long time. I mean, he already annoys me but in an endearing way, you know, like a puppy? And he's funny, and he's... he's _fun_.”

“He's fun,” Adam echoes, and he holds out his hands. “And there it is. You're not twenty-one anymore, Dean. That's all I'm saying.”

“What happened to thirty being Byronic?” Dean mumbles, and Adam gives this excruciatingly pitying smile.

“You don't like Aidan,” he says, “you just think you should. Look, get off with him once, cop a feel, get a thrill, whatever. But for God's sake, don't fall for him. Fall for Richard. You said you like him, so go with it! He's lovely and he's handsome and he's kind and he's, you know, financially secure. Yeah, fall for Richard. He's a good one, I can tell.” Adam raises his cup of tea to his lips, pauses, then shakes his head. “Nice you got a kiss from Aidan. But thank God you didn't shag him, eh?”

-

Richard is on time for their coffee in Bluebell's café, sitting at a table looking lovely in cornflower blue. When he stands he seems about two feet taller than Dean remembers him, so that when they hug Dean pushes himself on to tip-toes for a moment. He feels Richard's stubble scratch against his own jaw, but there's no kiss, not even on the cheek, and that's enough to set the cogs in rapid motion: Richard isn't interested. Adam can kiss the love story goodbye.

“It's lovely to see you again,” says Richard.

“You too!”

“I've been thinking about you this past week.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. You sound surprised?”

“No, not surprised, just...” Dean shrugs, uselessly, and offers up a smile. Richard smiles back. He seems calmer than usual.

“Listen, Dean, we need to talk about last weekend. I won't feel right until I've explained it to you.”

“Oh, you don't have to explain anything –”

“But I do,” Richard argues, sounding earnest. “I like you very much. I don't want any elephants in the room, so to speak.”

The jolt of nerves that's been gripping Dean's stomach since breakfast with Adam begins to dissipate slightly. Richard likes him very much. He just said so. Perhaps he isn't going to toss Dean out on his arse after all.

Richard clears his throat. “The thing is, Dean –”

“Are you guys ready to order or shall I give you five minutes?”

A waitress is standing smiling by their table, notepad in hand. Two hastily ordered espressos and she's gone again. Dean turns back to Richard, smiling apologetically as though the interruption was his own fault.

“You were saying?”

Richard's smile is patient, but it seems to be more with himself than with Dean, like for once he's determinedly allowing himself not to rush or fumble his words.

“I haven't dated anyone in a long time,” he says. “It's strange this, isn't it? Nice walks and coffee and dinner. In a good way, though. It's been nice getting to know you. And I want to carry on getting to know you, if that's alright with you.”

Dean smiles and resists the urge to clasp Richard's hand like gooey on-screen lovers. “I'd like to get to know you more, too.”

“The thing is, when we... when we _kissed_ last week... you were the first person I've done that with in almost a year. You see, my ex-partner – God, is it okay to talk about this sort of thing? I don't even know. Is this sleazy?”

Dean resists the urge to laugh, but he can't help a tiny smile. “Of course it isn't.”

“We were together for some time, is all. And it's over, it is, he's moved back to the States now and I'm still here and getting on with things and meeting new people, meeting _you_ , which has been great, really great. But it was just a bit of a... I don't know, shock? A good shock, I mean. It was nice. Kissing you, that is. Only I... panicked a bit. Too much too soon, I think.”

“Hey, we can go slower,” Dean gently suggests.

“Oh, it won't happen again.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn't mind if it did, is all I'm saying. I'm glad you told me, though. And I understand, Richard, I really do.” Dean hesitates, thinks about telling Richard, decides not to and then does anyway. “I was in a long-term relationship. It ended about six months ago. He moved abroad, too. You're the first person I've kissed besides him in nearly seven years!”

And then he feels awful, because that isn't true. Aidan beat Richard to it.

“I just mean I get it,” he continues. “We're both new to this. We've got plenty of time. If you wanna spend it together, that is.”

“I think I do,” Richard smiles, and now he's the one to reach across, do the rom-com thing and place his big hand on top of Dean's. “I definitely do.”

-

So they spend time together and they take a stroll through Regent's Park, arms brushing, until the oppressive blue July heat takes over and Dean flops on to the parched grass feeling only a little silly. After a moment's hesitation, Richard follows.

They sit and talk and Dean self-consciously threads daisies like a thirteen-year-old but isn't quite childish enough to wrap a chain around Richard's wrist. Instead he picks off each tiny pink-tinged petal and squishes the pollen between his fingers till they turn yellow, while he listens to Richard tell him about work.

Dean doesn't really _want_ to talk about work, and he's a bit worried that if this is all they have to talk about then the outlook for them seems bleak.

But then Richard says, “Hey, I caught a great radio show on Rick Mather last night,” and suddenly Dean is interested.

“The architect?”

“Incredible guy,” Richard nods. “We had a conference at Oxford University last spring and I got to see some of his work first-hand. Died only recently, you know. Well, I'm sure you do.”

“I didn't actually. Honestly, I haven't been keeping up with the subject much since... well, since college.”

“That's a shame,” says Richard, and Dean agrees. It is a shame. He misses it.

“You know,” says Dean, “I haven't even seen the Shard yet.”

They were supposed to go and see it together when it opened, him and Jared. If only Jared had clung on to London for two more months. Of course, Dean could go up to the observation deck himself but it's not much fun spending twenty quid just to be a sad loner. He'd only get in the way of all the couples trying to propose to one another anyway.

“We should go together,” Richard says brightly. “Yes, let's go! You need to see it, if not because you're interested in architecture then because you live in London. We could make a day of it, if the weather's nice. Or we could go at night, which would you rather see?”

Emboldened by Richard's sudden enthusiasm, Dean smiles, reaches out to brush a couple of pollen-smeared fingers over the back of Richard's hand, pleased when he doesn't pull away.

“I think I'd like to make a day of it, and see the view at night anyway,” he says.

“Oh,” says Richard, smiling in understanding. “Right then. Well, it's a date.”

And it actually is a date, a real-live third date. Fourth, if you count the engagement party. Things are going swimmingly, and Dean has to bite his lip to hide a smile on the car ride home, because a really lovely man likes him very much, and he's handsome and kind and financially secure, and he wants to talk to Dean about Rick Mather and take him to the Shard. He isn't strange or promiscuous, and he doesn't wear ripped jeans or awful t-shirts, and he isn't taken by someone else, and he doesn't come laden with weird hobbies like butterfly collecting or trainspotting.

Adam was right; Richard is a good guy to fall for. And it'll be easy. Dean can already feel himself getting there.

-

He goes round to Adam's that night, helps him pick bathroom junk out of a huge Wickes catalogue while Graham's round at one of his friend's places for poker night. Adam is so _not_ a poker guy, so they curl up on the sofa with cups of tea and paint samples because Adam still isn't sure if he wants just a feature wall or full coverage.

“Just don't want to distract from the tub too much,” he says. “It really is a gorgeous thing. Looks like something out of Downton Abbey, but it's a jacuzzi!”

“Imagine that!” says Dean.

“Oh come on, I know you're jealous. Then again, since your date with Richard today went so well I imagine you'll be getting a claw foot tub of your own soon enough. Reckon he'll take you to live in Notting Hill with him or will you get a new place together?”

“Adam!”

“Oh don't sound so scandalized, I know you've been thinking about it.”

“I genuinely haven't.”

“Anyway, you're next to Richard at the wedding, of course. Finished the seating plans today. Now all I need to do is wait for the suits to arrive and book the flight to Malaysia, and then we're pretty much done other than a few tiny bits and bobs.”

When Graham proposed last month, Adam allowed himself eight weeks to plan the wedding and no more. “None of this faffing about and um-ing and ah-ing,” he'd said. Adam doesn't wait around. For anything. They're getting married next month.

“How's your speech coming along?” he asks now.

“You're not supposed to ask about that,” says Dean.

“Which means you haven't made a start. Ah well, I should make allowances. You _are_ in the midst of a passionate courtship, after all. In fact, I think this calls for a celebration, don't you? So proud of you, Dean. Come on, it's Saturday night, let's crack out the sambuca and get really pissed, shall we?”

-

By the time Celebrity Juice starts they're both pretty drunk. They polish off the last of Adam's black sambuca and crack open a few of Graham's Heinekens and roll around on the floor for a bit, cushioned by all the fancy throw pillows from the couches. Dean tells Adam all about Aidan's lips in exact detail, which were wet and sort of plump, and compares them to Richard's, thinner but soft and warm, “like really nice apple pie.”

Adam laughs, a loud, carefree laugh that reminds Dean of the first time they met and the subsequent weekend which followed, slumped drunkenly on Dean's futon, giggling, listening to Irene Cara records on hi-fi speakers while Jared dashed round London setting up his new business.

It's like old times. Dean almost wants to mute the TV and find 'Fame' on YouTube and sing a terrible falsetto.

“You know you're my best mate, don't you?” Adam says out of the blue, followed by a hiccup.

“Course I do,” says Dean. “If you said I wasn't I'd think you nothing short of a philistine.”

“And when you get married, Deano, we can have so many date nights. Oh God, it'll be so go-o-o-od. It'll be like old times. Fuck-a-duck, I miss the old times, don't you? Remember when we used to go away for weekends, you and me and Graham and sometimes your Jared if he wasn't letting some business ay-so-see-at ram his head up his arse. Remember when we went camping in the Lakes?”

“Yeah, buddy. I remember.”

“Remember when you made that makeshift shower by letting the sun heat the water in that paddling pool we found? And you made the funnel and punched holes in the top of a Sprite bottle for a shower head? Remember?”

“Graham helped a lot, to be honest.”

“But it was your _idea_. God Dean, you have so many _good ideas_. You make all these little buildings and contraptions in your head, you're like a fucking _Sims_ game, mate.”

“Very sweet of you to say so, mate.”

“Mate, I want to crack this head open in a way that won't harm you and _peer inside_.” Adam rolls on to his side and takes hold of Dean's head and gives it a little shake, as though testing the waters for non-lethal head cracking. “I want to crack the Da Vinci code. Guess who's Da Vinci?”

“Who?”

“You!”

They both laugh and roll a bit like beetles stuck on their backs.

“No, but first,” Dean announces, suddenly aware of his booze-full, food-empty stomach, “first I must solve the riddle of the Sphinx.”

“Whassat?”

“Finding out where you keep the Madeira cake in this establishment.”

“Soz, lovie, no can do. I'm on a fruit, veg 'n sambuca diet till the wedding.”

“Oh Ads, why are you lying to yourself? Why are you lying to _me_? I'm your best friend. And I'm so hungry I'm going to eat your arm,” and quite suddenly Dean sinks his teeth into the flesh of Adam's spindly shoulder and the front door opens just as Adam shrieks with laughter.

Graham rushes in, clearly thinking Adam is being disembowelled by an axe murderer, only to find the two of them rolling around in front of a TV blaring Keith Lemon, Dean's teeth gripping Adam's arm like a ferret.

“Christ, Adam, you're screaming bloody murder in here,” Graham snaps, obvious alarm melting into something like exhaustion, Dean thinks, from where he's sprawled on the floor, head spinning.

“Graham, save me! He's resorted to cannibalism upon learning that our entire house is bereft of Madeira cake! You're my only hope!” Adam holds out his free hand and just about manages to clutch a bit of denim from Graham's jeans, before Graham walks easily away from him into the kitchen. They hear the crack of a beer tab reverberate around the vaulted ceiling, and Adam rolls his eyes. They both flop on to their backs again. “Grumpy arse,” Adam mutters, and suddenly it isn't much fun anymore.

Usually Dean gets the bus home (or nabs a lift from Graham, but Graham's so clearly not in the mood that Dean doesn't even bother asking) but today he walks. It's a bit far to make it without breaking a sweat, but it isn't too late at night and Graham's bad mood is somewhat sobering, once Adam and Dean have stopped stifling their sniggers into their sleeves. And anyway, the fresh air, still slightly warm from the day's sun, feels good on Dean's heavy head.

When he gets back to his flat he makes himself a ham sandwich, blitzed in the microwave with a couple of cheese singles, and flops bonelessly on to the couch, pulling out his phone to check his messages. Nothing from Richard, but then again Dean is pretty convinced at this point that Richard does not know what a text actually is. There's one from T-Mobile offering entry into a prize draw which Dean's drunken self is oddly swayed by, and one from Aidan.

He opens it. It says: _what you up to? wana do something?_ It was sent three hours ago. Dean chuckles drunkenly to himself for a moment, but it sounds so stupid he shuts up. He texts Aidan back, finishes his sandwich and goes to bed.

-

In the morning Dean wakes to lovely sunshine and a fat, throbbing head. He checks the time on his phone – 11:03, God he's a lazy arse – and finds he has two more texts. One from Adam – _u left ur jacket at mine lol_ – and another from Aidan. It simply reads _???_

Jolted into wakefulness, Dean scrambles to check his sent folder. Just after midnight, he sent the following to Aidan:

_l ol missing me alredy? brng medeera cake an illl thin bout it havil st se5 7rs flat b_

Which roughly translates into:

_Haha, are you missing me already? Bring me some Madeira cake and I'll think about it. I live at Havil Street SE5 7RS, Flat B. Come on over, Big Guy!_

Think about what? Oh God, why does he even bother having a phone if all he's going to do is disgrace himself? He lies back in bed and listens to the birds yapping outside the windows and waits and waits and waits for the doorbell to ring but, surprisingly, it doesn't happen. He sleeps a little longer, sorts out his hangover with more grease, and late in the afternoon when Dean's sitting by the open window having dinner Richard calls and repeatedly asks if it's a bad time, because he can call back later, you know, it's no problem, and Dean laughs and draws his knees up and tucks himself into the window seat, enjoying the sunshine, and they have this lovely long conversation about nothing much at all.

When they go to say goodbye Richard says, “I hope I didn't keep you from anything. I just wanted to talk to you,” and Dean remembers that ah yes, _this_ is what it's like; the discreet charm of it all, the _nerves_ , the ridiculous flutters of excitement every time a phone screen so much as catches the sunlight.

It's all coming back to him now. It's nice.


	8. Chapter 8

Dating provokes all kinds of new and interesting feelings. Because, Dean supposes, he's never really done it before. He and Jared never dated, not really. One day they were best friends, the next they were spoon feeding each other breakfast in bed (literally. Dean had to do two full cotton washes to get those goddamned strawberry stains out).

Dating is kind of scary, especially since he and Richard are grown men, not silly fawning teenagers. It means not only does their date conversation have to be suitably romantic, it also has to be sensible and sophisticated. Sexy, Sensible and Sophisticated: the Three Big S's. No one ever told Dean there would be Three Big S's to stress about but here they are, splayed out at his feet like a trio of hissing pythons.

Then again, no one told Dean dating would be so _nice_ either. It _is_ , stress aside. Richard is a sweetheart of ridiculous proportions, and having someone actually go out of their way to try and make Dean fall for them makes him feel good. Makes him look in the mirror and not wince.

The night before the Shard they go for drinks with Adam and Graham at the White Horse in Fulham. It's a relaxed affair, mostly dominated by Adam claiming to be suffering from sacroiliac joint dysfunction. He's read about it on the internet and says he has all the symptoms: his back hurts, his arse hurts, and he can't stop peeing. Dean's sure the first and last are caused by drinking a lot of tea while working on the bathroom. The second is probably a result of all the marathon sex Adam and Graham supposedly plunder through on a daily basis.

Dean's at the point where he's thinking his own sex life is going to forever pale in comparison with Adam's, but that night Richard drops him off at home, comes to the front door with him, and takes Dean's face in his hands and kisses him breathless. Alright, they're both a bit drunk because pints at the White Horse are cheap as chips and neither of them have the greatest tolerance to begin with. But even so, Dean thinks Richard is trying to tell him _something_.

So he takes his chances.

“D'you wanna come in, Rich?” He leans against the doorframe, trying to go for casual and languid rather than drunk. “I've just bought lavender tea, and the sofa's a futon.”

Wait, what? 'The sofa's a futon'? Is that supposed to be sexy? It's factual, but _is it sexy?_

Judging by Richard's response the answer is no. Nay. Negative.

“Actually, Dean... it's pretty late. We both want to be up in time for tomorrow, don't we?”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

“I mean, I could come in for five minutes...”

“No no no, you're right.” Dean feels like he's just sobered up completely in the space of about seven seconds. It's a good job it's dark so Richard can't see how red his face has gone. “We need to be up bright and early, indeed.”

Richard visibly relaxes, which is like a kick to the gut.

“Absolutely. I'll pick you up in the morning then, shall I?”

They kiss a second time, but with much less of the erotic ardour of before. Dean sees Richard off and goes inside his flat and gives his head a few light bangs against the door for good measure, cursing his total and utter inability to flirt like a normal human being. Fucking lavender tea and futons; like that ever enticed anyone into a shag.

Because, for the record, he thinks he'd rather like to shag Richard.

Anyway, the Shard date the next day goes as well as it could do given Richard's blatant rejection. They go for lunch at this really nice café near Regent Street (but not _on_ Regent Street, you understand, since Dean is kind of a vagrant in comparison to Richard) and Dean makes very sensible choices like Tuscany chicken salad and still water with a straw, because this a) is cheap; b) makes him look healthy; and c) gives the minimal amount of possibility for spillage and/or crumb-fall.

Then they go for a walk through the park like last week, but _un_ like last week Richard takes one hand out from his jeans pocket and tangles his fingers with Dean's, and they walk like that all the way to the boating lake. So obviously Richard doesn't find Dean totally insufferable, then.

They wait till the sky is sleepy, striped in dark summer blue and gelatinous pink, before going up to the Shard observatory. When they get up to the platform, in kaleidoscopic lifts that make Dean feel sick, when they're standing 800 feet above London, he's left speechless.

There's no way to describe the view; he can see for 40 miles, see it all, the pulsing metal and concrete of London but the _old_ heart of it, too; the brown brick and cobble of a city that never really went away.

Easily he spots the Eye, St Paul's, the Tower Bridge down there looking like a child's toy. Tiny dots of hackney carriages and red buses glide unhurried along the slithers of road, boats sail round bends of river and, beyond it all, peeking eerily are the glistening flats of Tottenham marshes.

But weirdly, these landmarks seem almost bland in comparison to the way Dean feels... alright, it sounds pretentious, but he feels _apart_ from it all. And he is, quite literally – he's two hundred and fifty metres into the sky. But more than that, the observation deck has done its job: he is an observer, watching London unfold and slip into night time, unknowingly watched, like Dean has a secret the city down there doesn't know.

And he isn't quite sure but he thinks the secret might be that, when one city is this small, nothing really matters, does it?

He looks at Richard.

“I can see my house from up here,” he says, and he points to Buckingham Palace. Richard laughs, even though it's an awful joke. “How do you think they built it? All this, I mean?”

“A lot of cranes and piling rigs,” says Richard.

“No, but how can _people_ get so much glass in the sky?”

“A hundred and thirty men stood on the shoulders of one another?”

Dean looks up at Richard. “You don't think it's amazing, then?”

“I think it's phenomenal. I think it's absolutely sensational.”

Dean can tell he does, because Richard's blue eyes have gone glassy, though that might just be the city lights reflecting off them.

“People make some pretty amazing stuff, huh?” says Dean. “Course, humans make some downright terrible stuff too, but there are times when you think you might be able to forgive them.”

“Like now?” says Richard, turning to him.

Dean smiles. “Yeah,” he says, “like now.”

 

 

-

There are shops and restaurants down near the thirtieth floor, and they get in another lift and dip into a cocktail bar. They have Martinis and Dean feels pretty damn ritzy, and afterwards they get the tube back to the car, park at the head of Dean's street and walk hand in hand the rest of the way to the flat. This time when Dean asks Richard in, Richard says yes.

The flat's still bare, but at least it's sort of tidy now. Dean's put the last of the unpacked boxes away in the airing cupboard for now, and the kitchen's clean, and his bed's made. But the living room is airless and stuffy from the day's heat, despite the window being thrown wide. Dean turns to Richard and smiles, almost like he's apologizing.

“I know it's hot,” he says. “Do you want a drink? Or there's food, if you're hungry.”

“I'm fine,” Richard says softly. “Don't let me stop you though, you go ahead.”

But Dean isn't hungry either, and the only reason he could stand a drink is because his mouth has suddenly gone very dry. He realises they're standing at opposite sides of the room, away from each other. Richard seems miles away, face moving distractedly as though he's trying to settle on an expression. Dean moves across the room towards him.

“Is... everything alright?” he asks. He checks Richard's face to make sure he isn't upset, but his eyes are soft and when Dean speaks to him he smiles, just a little bit.

“Everything's fine,” he says. “Everything's absolutely fine. Can I...?”

He doesn't finish his question, but Dean knows what he means anyway because he's just seen Richard's eyes flit down to his lips and linger. So Dean steps up on tip-toe to kiss him.

He can feel Richard smile into the kiss, and when Dean steps back down Richard looks relieved and pleased and maybe a little hungry after all.

“Dean,” he murmurs; he pulls Dean close and Dean lets him, encircling Richard's solid waist with his arms and nosing along his collarbone, eyes closed, waiting. A hand comes up to thread in his hair, and he sighs.

“Dean,” Richard says again, “I, ah...”

“Yeah?”

“Can I... kiss you again?”

It must be the Bombay Sapphire which makes Dean look up at him and say cheekily, “I dunno, can you?”

“ _May_ I?”

So Dean kisses him again. The angle is perfect this time and their mouths slant snugly together. Dean gives this silly, hot little whimper and slides his hands into Richard's short hair and licks right into his mouth, because this time he's determined to make it clear how he feels, so neither of them are left stranded in that weird, ambiguous nowhere land, unsure what the other is thinking.

Dean _likes_ Richard. Richard is _gorgeous_ , a proper man, not some silly boy. Dean wants this, and he doesn't know what he'll do if Richard doesn't.

But it seems Richard does, because he takes Dean's head in his hands and kisses him hard and it feels _good_ , and he drags the tip of his tongue along the underside of Dean's and they suddenly rock together and Dean's fingers scrunch in Richard's hair and this is a very very great idea, he's sure of it.

It's Richard who breaks the kiss, with a gentle nip of teeth on Dean's bottom lip, but Dean's the one who shows him into his bedroom. If he's expecting a comment on the shabbiness of the room, it doesn't come. And anyway, he realises he isn't really. Expecting one, that is. They kiss standing at the foot of the bed until Richard's mouth is red and wet with it, then fall together, Richard on top of Dean, and Dean feels his blood thrum from head to toe, nerve endings alight like tiny pinpricks all over his body.

It's the closeness more than anything, the warm weight on top of him that's blissful. He pulls Richard close for more and kisses him over and over, Richard's mouth soft and open and welcoming, big hands rubbing circles on Dean's sides. A long finger comes up across Dean's cheek, his wet mouth; then Richard brings his hand slowly down over Dean's body in a single-minded gesture of desire, impossible to misinterpret.

And then it changes. The hand doesn't relax; it stays rigid, hard, like its action is mechanical, something obligatory rather than chosen. Dean tries to kiss him again, but without warning Richard pulls away, throwing himself back up on to his feet, as though a giant spider has just crawled across the bed. Dean even looks to see – but no, there's nothing, no one, only him, lying there, dazed with a fuzzy head.

“What is it?” he asks. “What's wrong?”

“I... I can't at the moment.”

“At the moment?”

“It's just... I'm sorry.” Richard holds his arms clasped round his chest like armour. “It's not you, I'm just not in the right frame of mind, that's all.”

That's all, he says, as though it's something simple. Dean feels his breath hitch uncomfortably as he sits up and tugs his t-shirt down where it's rucked up around his middle.

“You sure it's nothing I've done?” he says, because what else can it be? A total aversion to sex in its entirety? That's a load of bollocks. Guys like Richard don't have aversions to sex in its entirety. It'd be like a koala with a hatred of eucalyptus leaves. Something David Attenborough would refer to as “one of nature's startling anomalies”. It just doesn't happen.

“Of course it isn't,” says Richard, but he doesn't sound sure. He hasn't even taken his jacket off. Minutes later, he's gone.

Alone again, Dean sits on the end of his bed and runs his hands up goose-bumped arms. His bedroom's lit only by the glare of the street lamps outside. Typically, it starts to rain. Nice rain, summer rain, clearing away the humidity, but rain nonetheless, and he hears the sound of wet tyres on the road outside and wonders how long it will take Richard to drive home.

His room smells musky and damp all of a sudden, like a hospice shop. He kicks a cardboard box at the foot of the bed, hears bottles of aftershave and moisturiser clack and roll around in there. He really needs to sort this flat out. He looks across at the window, sees his rain-smattered reflection staring blankly back at him.

“Oh Dean,” he sighs, “idiot you.”

Idiot you. It takes him a moment to realise he's spoken to an empty room.

 

 

-

Weirdly, it's Adam who suggests Dean call Aidan.

“ _Not_ for a shag. Just for a mate. You could do with a pick-me-up, and you said he's fun. He'll cheer you up.”

“Why can't you cheer me up?” Dean mumbles.

“I told you, I'm picking up the suits today, I can't entertain you. Go on, call Aidan.”

But Dean won't, so Adam takes the liberty of inviting Aidan to his and Graham's next barbecue instead.

“It'll do you good being around your friends,” Adam says the next day, fluffing up Dean's pillows when he doesn't want them to be fluffed and straightening the curtains when he doesn't want them to be straightened.

“Adam, please, I just want to crawl into bed and die. Can't you respect that? And if you dare invite Richard I'll gnaw your face off.”

“Dear God, celibacy is making you vicious.”

Dean throws one of the fluffed pillows at him, and Adam leaves. It's true, Dean does want to crawl into bed. Maybe not die, but he imagines if he did no one would miss him much. Adam's getting married, Richard's not interested, Aidan's... what's Aidan doing? Probably getting high somewhere, that's what people like Aidan do, isn't it? Get high?

Dean hasn't gotten high since university. Maybe that's what he should do, maybe he should get high. Then he thinks: _effort_. It'd be less of an effort to sort the flat out, but he doesn't do that either. He goes into the kitchen and makes himself an immense chicken club sandwich and a cup of tea with _two sugars_ in it. Then he sets it on the coffee table, strips the duvet off his bed, takes it into the living room and wraps it round himself even though the electronic thermometer by the window says it's 19°C outside (that's a heatwave in England). He keeps Film4 on all day and ignores his phone when it buzzes and spends a large amount of time wondering why he's so utterly unlovable.

In short, he spends the day feeling sorry for himself, and damn, it feels _good_. He has vague plans to meet up with some mates from work for a liquid lunch but nothing comes of it. Anyway, alcohol's a depressant, isn't it, so it's probably best if he doesn't drink.

The working week is long and by the time Adam's barbecue rolls around Dean feels almost human again. That's one plus to getting older: you get over things more quickly. Hangovers, heartbreak, all of it's gone in a flash when you have a job to do, when your main concerns all week are risk assessments and gruelling phone calls with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

But, that aside, as Dean lies in bed that morning, in spite of how at ease he feels, in spite of the gorgeous weather pouring in through the window, in spite of him having nothing else to do all day, he doesn't want to go to Adam's. He doesn't want to see the happy couple, and he definitely doesn't want to see Aidan Turner. God, he'll be a nightmare; grinning and flirting and pawing all over him, Dean can see it now. He turns in bed and grapples for his phone and sends a message to Adam: _not feeling great today bud, gonna give the bbq a miss x_

There, a kiss, a term of endearment, a good excuse, Adam can't yell at him for this. He doesn't reply at all actually, which means he's annoyed. Dean hardly cares. He spends all his time doing what Adam wants him to do. For once he's going to do exactly what _he_ likes, and right now that means staying in bed till midday.

It works, for a while. It's lovely. Then, around four o'clock in the afternoon, when Dean's padding around in sweat pants and an old Velvet Underground t-shirt, sun-soaked floorboards warming his feet, there comes a knock on the door. He answers it warily. Aidan's standing on the doorstep, bag slung over his shoulder, and Dean has a tiny moment of anxiety because he can't remember if he gave Aidan the impression that he wanted him to come round.

“Hello, Aidan...”

“Hiya, grumpy,” Aidan chirps. “You weren't at Adam's. Thought I'd check in on you on my way home. Make sure you weren't, you know, dead.”

“On your way home? To Brixton?”

Aidan rolls his eyes. “Fine, I'm going out of my way to check you aren't dead, okay? You gonna let me in then or what?”

Since Dean doesn't really have any choice – after all, Aidan didn't _have_ to take the long way home to check Dean's rotting cadaver wasn't sprawled across the kitchen tiles – he stands back and watches as Aidan traipses into his flat, bag bouncing.

“Nice place,” he says. “I'm particularly fond of the wall art.” He points to three jagged cracks in the plaster beside the front door, left over from the previous tenant. It looks like someone's been angrily lobbed into the wall. Dean shoves him lightly.

“Shut up. I haven't gotten around to sorting it out yet.”

“No, I can see that.” Aidan stands in the middle of the lounge, a bright spark among the shabby interior. He's dressed in a stark white t-shirt, practically blinding in the late afternoon sun. He drops his bag to the floor with a thud. “Brought you something,” he says, unzipping it, and he pulls out something long and wrapped in plastic and chucks it at Dean.

Dean turns it over in his hands. Sainsbury's All Butter Madeira Cake.

“You're a dork, Turner.”

“A hungry dork. Can we open it? I'm starving. And have you got anything to drink?” Aidan wanders into the kitchen and minutes later Dean hears the kettle clicking on.

“Sure, make yourself at home,” he mumbles, following him. Aidan doesn't bother with plates; they sit cross-legged on the couch and cut what they want from the loaf and end up getting crumbs everywhere.

“Sorry,” says Aidan, dusting down his jeans. “Then again, I don't suppose you care much. You aren't particularly house-proud, are you?”

“What d'you mean by that?”

“I mean your place is a mess, Dean.”

“I see. You come here and disturb me on my day off, drink my tea and get crumbs everywhere, and somehow _I'm_ the one deserving of insult?”

Aidan laughs. “Well, you've been avoiding me, barging in was my last resort. I didn't want to do it. I did try to make friendly mutual arrangements, but you weren't game.”

“I'm sorry, I've just been...” Dean shakes his hands a bit instead of finishing, indicating that he has in fact been in a huge mess the past couple of weeks.

“Yeah?” says Aidan, clearly understanding. “What's wrong? What's happened?”

Dean stretches and sighs, brushing crumbs from his lap. “Oh, I don't know. Try I'm thirty years old and every aspect of my social life is hanging by a thread. And I live in a flat so crappy even you're picking up on it, and to top it all off the only constant in my life is a job I hate.” It comes out in one big rush, and he takes a huge gulp of air when he's finished. Aidan nods wisely.

“Ah,” he says, “that old chestnut.” He digs in his pocket for a cigarette. “Mind if I smoke?”

Dean thinks about it. The lease prohibits smoking indoors but now Aidan's here Dean would rather he remain on the couch with him.. “Go ahead.”

“Cheers. So...” Aidan puts the fag between his lips, lights it and inhales sharply. “You hate your job? I thought you loved your job.”

“Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“I think I may have been lying.”

“I think you may have been, too. So quit the job.”

Aidan takes another long drag on his cigarette. Dean watches as he draws the smoke into his mouth with his eyes closed tight, letting his head fall back against the sofa, dusty smoke curling back out from between his lips. Smoking, of course, is a filthy, dangerous habit, one Dean should not be allowing to take place in his very own living room. Still, that doesn't stop the warm curl of something not altogether unpleasant roiling in his stomach at the sight. He looks away quickly.

“Aidan, don't give me the _carpe diem_ speech, I'm not in the mood. I can't quit my job. See point B.”

“You living in a crappy flat? It's actually not bad at all, though. You live on a nice road, it's got a lot of space for London. You just haven't bothered to decorate properly. We'll do it tomorrow, you and me. Whip this place into gear, yeah? Right, what were the other problems?”

Dean sighs. “You don't have to life coach me, you know.”

“Tell me the other problems, for fuck's sake. Don't whine and then play the martyr, Dean.”

“I'm not –”

“You said your social life is hanging by a thread. D'you know why that is? Because you don't take people up on their invites! Adam invited you round today, and you wouldn't go.”

“I shouldn't _have_ to go if I don't want to! I'm old enough to make my own decisions!”

“Then stop complaining.”

“But –”

“You just want people to come around when you want them round, and go when you want them gone. Life doesn't work like that, mate.”

“Look, I don't need someone like you telling me how life works.”

“Someone like me?”

“Yes! Someone so...”

Dean rakes his eyes up and down Aidan's body, from his scruffy baseball shoes, up scraped jeans to his blinding t-shirt, messy hair, jaw mottled with a week's worth of stubble. 'Unstable' springs to mind. Then careless, demented, _beautiful_...

In the end he doesn't say any of them. “Sorry,” he sighs. “I didn't mean anything by that. It's just, you're very cocky to say we've only met a handful of times.”

“Oh please,” says Aidan, “will you stop pretending we're casual acquaintances? You and I are friends, Dean, whether you like it or not.”

“I don't think friendship is supposed to be as forced as that,” Dean chuckles.

“So tell me you want me to leave and I will. I _know_ you want me around, pal.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, the other week you invited me round here when you were drunk. Useful bit of information, by the way, your address. Your true colours shine when you're inebriated, Deano, don't you know that? Plus you've not once terminated any of our meetings, it's always been me. With reluctance, I might add. And look –” Aidan points down between them with his cigarette, “your toes are touching my thigh. Sly fox.”

Dean wrenches his foot away quickly. “Fine. I like having you as a friend. Doesn't mean my life isn't splitting at the seams.”

“No, it doesn't, but you know... I have this sneaking suspicion you'll be alright eventually.” Aidan leans across and uses a plate left on the coffee table from lunchtime to stub out his cigarette. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow. Your woes and your heartbreak and your sob stories. It's good to purge, and I'm a nosy bastard. But I'll give you tonight to decide on all the gritty details you want to leave out. I won't put you under pressure right now.”

“You're too kind, Aidan, really.”

“Don't worry about the paint either. I'll bring that.”

Dean looks at him. “The... the paint?”

“Just have some bin liners handy. Oh, and newspaper. And I'll be over early, so make sure you're up.”

“Anything else? Breakfast? Hot bath? Coffee brewing?”

“Oh, coffee'd be great!” Then Aidan sees Dean's face and laughs. “Give over, Dean. I know you want me around really.”

And Dean thinks, _I do_. That's the problem.


	9. Chapter 9

Aidan _means_ early. It's a good job Dean's up in time. He's beginning to realise that it's usually best to take Aidan's words quite literally; clearly he's the kind of guy who would suggest walking the Great Wall of China, and then actually get on a plane and do it.

He's standing on the doorstep with his bag, a cigarette glued to his lip, and a tin of _yellow_ paint in his spare hand.

“Yellow?” says Dean, letting him in. “Isn't that a little... stimulating?”

“Absolutely. Stimulates the intellect.”

“I just don't think it's particularly restful.”

“Well you're not sleeping in the living room, are you? Or are you? Is your bedroom really that bad?” Aidan dumps the tin by the door and dusts his hands off, bag following. He takes the fag out of his mouth and peers around the lounge, giving a little nod and inhaling deeply. “Anything's better than this charming sour milk hue. Yellow's a great colour, sunshine and energy and cheerfulness. Plus yellow's the practical thinker, not the dreamer. Perfect for you. It'll give you enthusiasm, but still resonate with the left side of your brain. Yellow is the scientist but also the entertainer. Methodical but comic.”

“It causes anxiety and emotional distress.”

“It awakens inner confidence and hope.”

“It's a colour, Aidan.”

“You're writing off the psychology of colour? Didn't expect that from someone like you. Well, alright, if you want to be purely _architectural_ about it, this room is north-facing and it has big windows, so yellow is perfect.”

He's right, of course. Yellow _is_ perfect for this living room, and the warm, lemony shade Aidan's picked out is almost the exact colour Dean had in mind when he first moved in and actually entertained ideas of decorating. The room's big enough to accommodate it, and the stripped floorboards are actually one of the few beautiful things about the flat; everyone knows dusky yellow complements stripped floorboards like strawberries and cream.

“Right, let's get the couch shifted and that coffee table too,” says Aidan, rubbing his hands together. “D'you think we need to whitewash the walls first?”

“I'm not whitewashing the walls, Aidan.”

“Righto! If the colour comes out wrong don't blame me.”

But it doesn't come out wrong. They shift the couch and the coffee table and the stacks of DVDs and the TV all the way across the room, lay down old bedsheets and newspaper and attach it all to the skirting board with masking tape to make double sure the pristine floor won't be ruined, and then Aidan chucks Dean a paint brush from out of his bag and they get started, and the colour is _gorgeous_. It really, really is.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that Dean has a steadier hand than Aidan, so he does the cutting in while Aidan does the wide open spaces. It's a bit surreal, to be honest, painting his front room yellow with the mad waiter from Adam's party. But then, Dean supposes, Aidan isn't just the mad waiter anymore, is he? They _are_ friends, and it's evident more than ever in the way Dean soon begins to find he's actually enjoying himself.

Because Aidan, for all his faults, is _funny_ , and his cheerfulness is downright infectious.

“Have you got any music we could put on?” he asks, once they're halfway done with the chimney breast wall. “And can I open a window? It's boiling in here.”

Aidan opens both windows without waiting for an answer, and Dean drags his unpacked speakers out from one of the boxes in the airing cupboard and hands them over. Aidan slots in his own iPod – apparently not trusting Dean's (sensible, really: Dean has never been known for his stellar taste in music. He's pretty sure his mp3 player claims his most listened to track is Everybody Hurts by REM) – and blasts Beck. Typical. It's exactly the sort of dirty stoner alt rock Dean knew Aidan would be in to.

Now, were this a film – and Dean often does feel like the well and truly pummelled protagonist in a cheesy rom-com – this would be the point where the falling-in-love montage commences. The summery shuffle on Aidan's iPod would act as the soundtrack, and the two of them would dance together without it being forced or self-conscious, and they'd put paint on each other’s noses, and by the end of 'You Make My Dreams' or 'I'm a Believer' or 'Build Me Up Buttercup' they'd be kissing on the floor all over the paint-stained newspaper.

Suffice to say that isn't exactly what happens, but halfway through 'Ramble On', when Aidan's in the midst of painting and rocking his hips in a manner downright sinful, he glances over at Dean and throws him a wink, and it lands in the pit of Dean's stomach and tucks itself in there and coils up tight and warm, and Dean thinks _well, fuck_.

Aidan hasn't made him 'purge' yet, but when they've covered one and a half walls and had a bit of lunch they dig out the unpacked boxes, and the first one Aidan tears open is the one brimming with Jared's leftover stuff.

Course, Aidan doesn't _know_ it's Jared's stuff, but since Dean doesn't want to be thought of as the owner of plush dinosaurs and jandals, he blurts out, “That's my ex's stuff. I've been meaning to throw it away.”

“So why haven't you?”

“Just never got round to it.”

“Why not? It's only a little box.”

There's three more in the wardrobe in Dean's bedroom. He shrugs. “I don't know. There's loads of stuff I haven't thrown away, mine _and_ his.”

“'Cos you wanna remind yourself of the time when there _was_ a you and him?”

“Don't play the therapist, Aidan. I just didn't have time to haul it all out to the skip, okay?”

“We have time now. Come on, I'll help you.” Aidan takes the dinosaur's head and shoves it carelessly back into the box, twisting its neck horribly. Without even thinking about it Dean snatches the box away from him.

“Don't,” he says, taking out the dinosaur, then a few other bits on the top of the pile; Jared's broken sunglasses, a spare belt, his Mighty Mighty Bosstones CD. It's junk, really, clear in the way Jared never took it with him or asked for any of it back.

Aidan looks like he might argue, but his expression softens. “Where is he?” he asks.

Dean looks at him. “Who?”

“Mr Turner. Your ex.”

“His name's Jared. He's in New Zealand.”

“Ah, right. You broke up when you moved here?”

“No, no, we moved here together.” Dean hesitates. “He went back. This Christmas gone.”

“He left you at Christmas?”

“Yes, but it wasn't... it wasn't like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like something heinous and cruel. Look, I don't wanna talk about it, alright?” To stress his point Dean trudges off into the kitchen, but Aidan follows.

“Don't get mad,” he says, as though Dean's a toddler throwing a tantrum. “You can't be sore about him forever.”

“For God's sake, Aidan, you don't know anything about it.”

“I know you're hanging on to boxes full of junk because they remind you of him. And you haven't properly unpacked your stuff even after six months because you think he'll come back.”

“Two months,” says Dean. “You're actually wrong for once. I've only been here two months, and I know he won't come back. I wanted to keep our old place, but I couldn't afford the rent on my own. And no, Sherlock, I don't keep his stuff around because it reminds me of him.”

“Then why?” Aidan urges.

Dean turns towards the kettle and busies himself with making more tea in some mad imitation of comfortability.

“Because,” he says, tapping a teaspoon against the rim of a cup, “regardless of how badly things turned out, I was with him for six years and that's a _long time_. Okay, it wasn't always perfect, and towards the end it was pretty awful, but for the most part I was alright.”

“Happy?”

“Yes, happy.”

“But that doesn't mean you have to hang on to his stuff,” says Aidan, ever tactful. “I mean, d'you think closing the door on a time when you were happy means no one else can make you happy ever again?”

Dean sets the teaspoon down and hands a cup to Aidan. “Here.”

“Dean...”

“Look, why do you even care what I do with Jared's stuff? What's it to you? You don't know anything about it.”

“I know you're unhappy,” says Aidan, and Dean sighs, but Aidan presses on: “You look so sad all the time, Dean, d'you know that?”

“God, don't get fucking maudlin about it.”

“But you _do_. You don't even see it. I mean yeah, you don't half whine most of the time, but a lot of it doesn't seem completely unwarranted. He obviously hurt you. Why keep reminding yourself of it?”

“Aidan, do you honestly think me throwing out his _sunglasses_ is going to make me forget what happened?”

“It might,” Aidan shrugs. He pauses, staring into his tea. He looks like he might take a sip, then thinks better of it. “What _did_ happen?”

Dean considers this. “We just... had our time. As couples do.” But Aidan is not satisfied with this, clearly, because he doesn't say a word, though one of his dark eyebrows arches ever so slightly. Dean sighs. “He left me for someone else. Some _girl_. Someone he met – no, not even _met_. Not properly.” He looks at Aidan wearily. “He met her on the _internet_. Didn't even know her, really. I mean, you can hardly fall in love from behind a screen, but it was enough to send him 12,000 miles back home. D'you think he'd ever go that far for me? I did for him. He dragged _me_ here, he's the reason I'm stuck here.”

“Why didn't you ever go back?”

“Go back? I built a life here, Aidan! He was supposed to be a _part_ of it. Jared had the money to do whatever he wanted, set up a business in Auckland, move it over here, buy a nice apartment, move the fuck back, as and when he pleased. He could do anything. What could I do? I didn't have bags of money – everything I _did_ earn went into our home. My job pays me like a fucking beggar. I mean, look at the place I live in.”

Dean holds his arms out either side of himself, the kitchen so tiny he can almost touch each wall. He lets them flop back down again.

“And he doesn't care. Why would he? He's back with his family and his friends – _our_ friends – and he's engaged to some fucking girl who won him over in a goddamned chat room. I can't even... _kiss_ someone without them jumping off me like I have some fucking disease.”

It's starting to hurt to talk, but he isn't sure if it's because he's doing it so much or because he can feel that familiar thick feeling pricking at the back of his throat and eyes. He forces it down.

“You have no idea what it was like, those last few months. Lying in bed, knowing that he was talking to _her_ , because if it was 1am here it'd be midday there and she'd be on her lunch break. He'd get into bed later with this guilty fucking look on his face and think I didn't know, and I really wanted to hate him but I couldn't. And I don't. That's the worst part. I don't hate him. Couldn't even come close.”

“But he's a _prick_ ,” says Aidan.

“I know.”

“He really fucked you over.”

“It doesn't make a difference.”

“Yes, it does! I know you can't force yourself to hate someone, but don't let the bastard control your life like this. Taking up space in _your_ fucking airing cupboard. That space is for your laundry, not his junk. You know, Dean, maybe you're telling yourself that people don't control their emotions, and they fall in and out of love, and maybe him leaving you wasn't a dick move if he was following his heart. But don't try and justify him sneaking around, and keeping secrets, and leaving you penniless. And don't say there's nothing cruel about abandoning someone at Christmas, because there _is_ , alright?”

Aidan puts his cup of tea down and storms out, and for one bizarre moment Dean thinks he's so angry that he's leaving altogether, but moments later Aidan comes back in with Jared's box. He takes out the plush dinosaur by the neck. He snatches up a pair of scissors off the counter top. He holds them both out to Dean.

“Aidan, this is ridiculous.”

“It's not. Go on.”

“It's just a bit of cotton and wool.”

“Then chop it up, if it's so meaningless.”

Dean takes the dinosaur first, then the scissors. It's a gormless plush thing; cute in a dopey, lopsided sort of way. It hasn't done anything wrong, has it? Jared won it on a coconut shy three years ago and they put it on their night stand, and every time they had sex Jared would jokingly turn it around so it was facing the wall. The height of comedy.

“Stab it,” Aidan says, making helpful gestures. “It's a toy, not him.”

So Dean does. He stabs it. By God, it actually feels quite _good_. Aidan must notice, because he grins.

“Keep going!”

Again Dean listens and acts and slaughters with the ferocity of Bubba Sawyer, and by the end of it the purple dinosaur is nothing but strips of lilac cotton and fluffy white wool on Dean's kitchen floor.

Aidan reaches into the box and pulls out a CD and Dean snaps it. And it goes like that. By the time the box is empty, it looks like something terrible has happened in here.

Dean doesn't feel terrible at all.

Aidan collapses the box and presses it neatly down on to the counter top, and they take their tea and go into the lounge and carry on painting, not saying a word about it until half an hour later when Dean looks over and finds Aidan singing quietly along to some Lynyrd Skynyrd track.

“Hey Aidan,” he says. “Thank you.”

Aidan simply smiles one of those impossible smiles and leans to carefully pull a loose brush strand from the wall.

The paint isn't particularly quick-drying, but once they've finished one wall they move the furniture back and go on to another so that by the time the room's done the only wall left drying is the one opposite the chimney breast. Dean's never used that wall for anything anyway. They put the sofa back, but Aidan insists on moving things about a bit. He wants the television in the right hand corner instead of the left, and the sofa at an angle, and he uses that still-wet wall for the breakfast table and chairs, leaving an inch of space between them so that none of the wood gets stained with yellow paint.

They empty out the rest of the boxes, slot the books and records and DVDs into the built-in shelves in the alcoves, toss the throw cushions on to the sofa and the window seat, lay down the red and orange Persian-style rug Dean got at a flea market in Camden years ago. It used to go in the hallway in his and Jared's old apartment, but it looks perfect here. Better, even. Cosy.

There are framed prints, too; ones Dean took himself back in New Zealand of dusky beaches and boardwalks, generic things Aidan praises far too highly. Dean props them up over the mantelpiece and says he'll hang them later, but Aidan says no, they're doing it now, they're doing everything properly, so they dig nails and a small hammer out of the toolbox under the sink and hang them, one by one, agonizing over straight edges and distances until they look perfect. Instead they use the mantelpiece for framed photographs, two red candles, the half-dead cactus from the kitchen Aidan insists they can bring back to life.

They dust the blinds and wipe down the windowsills and spray the coffee table with Mr Sheen. When they flop together on to the couch, flushed and exhausted, the air is thick with polish and paint. And Dean has a living room. Yellow. Methodical but comic.

“Aidan, you have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

“You'd better. I've got loads of paint gummed up under my nails now, look.”

“So how can I repay you?”

Aidan's eyes flash wickedly, and he looks like he's on the verge of telling a joke. His stomach grumbles loudly, and he changes his mind.

“Dinner wouldn't go amiss, darlin'.”

“I can do dinner,” says Dean. “Dinner I can do.”

-

Adam's wedding is only a short while away, and the next evening he comes over to sort out last-minute plans. Why he thinks Dean will be of any use concerning these plans, God only knows. But at seven o'clock Adam is perched on Dean's sofa, having gushed over the makeover for twenty minutes straight, with a huge Filofax in his lap.

Dean suspects the remainder of the wedding planning will be relentless and painful so he changes out of his work clothes into soft pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt and makes them both tea and curls up at one end of the sofa and begins to listen patiently.

“Right, so originally we had two starters,” says Adam, “the Parma ham with glazed figs and rocket for the majority of the guests, and then the goat's cheese with the baby pear and walnut dressing for the vegetarians. But it turns out Graham's auntie and her whole family – that's two kids and her third husband – are bloody _vegan_ , so I'm having to have melon pearls with lychee purée and lime sorbet made up for _them_.”

“Give them nothing,” Dean suggests. “They're messing you around.”

Adam ignores him. “I'm still agonizing over a sorbet between the soup and main.”

“There's a soup? A starter _and_ a soup?”

“Well the starter is tiny, Dean.”

“Right! So go with my advice, don't give that vegan family anything. They won't be missing out.”

“If we did go for the sorbet, which d'you think people would prefer? Elderflower and rose water, or lemon with red fruits? I thought about champagne sorbet but the kids can't have that.”

“Of course they can have it. It's only a little glass.”

“Elderflower or lemon, come on, which?”

“How about both, since you're having three starters?”

“Dean.”

“Lemon, then.”

“I think elderflower.”

“Okay, elderflower.”

“The main's going to be guinea fowl with this amazing braised leek and juniper sauce.”

“Guinea fowl? What are you giving the vegetarians?”

“Wild mushroom risotto, with a sort of shallot salad.”

“Why not just give everyone that? Save money, save time, without accidentally poisoning any vegans.”

“I want guinea fowl at my wedding, Dean! I feel about having guinea fowl as a main the way women feel about wearing their grandmother's antique wedding veil.”

“Hysterical?”

“ _Shush_ , you. Oh gosh, I'm so stressed.” Adam leans forward and picks up his tea and drains it all in three gulps. “Don't ever get married, Dean. It's a bloody mess-around.”

“I thought you were enjoying it?”

“I was. Oh, I _am_. But Graham's being so awkward recently, he isn't helping at all. I know he's got a lot on at work, I _know_ he doesn't get as much time off as me, and then of course we've all the work going on at the house, builders constantly in and out, trailing their muddy boots everywhere, but I thought he was alright with it. Half of this was his idea! He _wanted_ to renovate the bathroom this month, he _agreed_ we should get married in August – he proposed, for pity's sake! It's like it's all suddenly dawning on him just how much we've got to get done. It's certainly catching up with me.” He tries to sip from his empty mug again, like a desperate god trying to lick up the last few droplets of ambrosia.

“Would you like some wine?” Dean asks kindly.

“Yes, please, I would!” Adam gasps, so Dean goes to fetch a bottle of white and pours Adam a healthy glassful. He downs half in one go, and it seems like the only reason he's refraining from downing the second half is awareness of social graces. Dean pats him gently on the back.

“Look, buddy, I know you're stressed, but in a few weeks' time none of this will matter. On the big day you're not gonna be fretting about whether or not Graham's vegan auntie has got her melon pearls, you're gonna be so happy you won't even notice anyone else is in the room but you and Graham.”

Adam sniffs. “I suppose...”

“I know you said Graham's not himself lately, but that's understandable too. It's a big change for both of you, but it doesn't mean he isn't happy about it.”

The truth is, Dean is utter wank at giving advice, even where his best friend is concerned. His words are always shoddy, generic things learned from soaps and films, but at least they seem to cheer Adam up a little.

“I hope you're right,” he says. “I wonder sometimes if I'm badgering him too much, pushing him into things he doesn't want to do, but he doesn't _tell_ me anything so how can I possibly know?” Adam forgets social conduct and drains the rest of the wine. “Come on, let's talk about something else. It's doing my head in, all this. Let's put the telly on, eh?”

They watch Grand Designs for a bit, but it's one Dean's seen before – a couple building a house from sandbags and straw in Islington – and Adam isn't much into renovation programmes anyway. Ten minutes in he reaches out with his leg and pokes Dean's thigh with his toes.

“Heard from Richard?” he asks softly.

“Nah. Well... okay, he called a few times, but I didn't...”

“You ignored them.”

Dean winces. “Is that bad?”

“Well, I suppose not. It's not like you have to talk to him. But you do if you ever want to hear his explanation. And don't forget you're still next to each other at the wedding.”

“Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that...” Dean shifts on the couch, tucking his legs beneath himself carefully, and gives Adam a smile. “I know it's a bit late, but there's no possibility that you could... move things around a bit, is there?”

“Dean...”

“Not a lot, just – I don't know, put me next to someone else. Anyone, Aidan or something.” He tries to say it casually, as though he really doesn't mind who it is, but Adam's eyebrows narrow almost immediately.

“Aidan?” he says. “Dean, I'm not putting you next to Aidan! You're the best man, you're on the high table, and Richard is Graham's friend. Aidan's just Aidan! He's the bloke who ripped out my bathroom! I'm not putting you next to Aidan.”

“Alright, alright, it was just a suggestion. You don't have to get all up in arms about it, you spoon.”

“You can't avoid Richard forever. 'If you avoid problems, you'll never be the one who overcame them'. Richard Bach said that.”

“What a guy.”

“Aidan's a lovely, lovely bloke but the only reason I'd put him on the high table would be if he were your date and –” Adam cuts himself off. “Dean, you don't still _fancy_ Aidan, do you?”

“Look, you don't have to say it like that. I'm not some twelve year old girl.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“I... would not be entirely opposed to having him as my date.”

“That _does_ answer my question. Dean! I thought we discussed this! I thought we agreed he was bad news.”

“We discussed it, but _I_ never said he was bad news. That's what you decided, based on, what, a few conversations you had with him at work?”

“Based on his track record,” Adam says primly.

“Track record of what?”

“Being weird!”

“He isn't weird, though! He's different, he's a little unconventional, but he's not some kind of _freak_. He's really nice! And he's funny, and he's _smart_ , and he doesn't bullshit like everyone else does.” Dean picks up a throw cushion, giving it a little shake. “Look, he helped me decorate.”

“He's a handyman. Of course he can decorate.”

“But he didn't have to do it, it's not like I was paying him. He came over and he just... I thought I didn't want him to, I thought I wanted to be on my own, but he just makes me... do stuff I wouldn't normally do. Do what I _want_ to do, even if I don't realise I want to do it at first. Does that make sense?”

Adam's voice is sharp. “Of course it makes sense. Aidan's zany and fun and forever infantile, and he eats sunshine for bloody breakfast, but energy like that burns up fast. And when it does, you're left with a broken heart and a lot of wasted time.”

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. John Lennon said that.”

“ _What a guy_. Dean, be realistic: Aidan isn't the sort of person you want to plan your life around. Think about the future. Think _long-term_.”

“Maybe I don't want to think long-term anymore. Look where long-term planning got me! You're always telling me not to live in the past, but I'm sick of living in the future too. Sitting around, waiting for something to happen. It's not going to!”

“That isn't what it's about. It's about making sure you're safe and secure in the future.”

“I'm safe and secure now, and I hate my life!”

“You're just being dramatic, you don't mean that.”

“I bloody do.”

“Right. And _Aidan Turner_ is going to fix that, is he?”

“Probably not forever. But when he gets fed up I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it when it happens.”

Adam's lip curls dismissively. “Do you even know if he fancies you?”

“Well, no. He'll probably tell me to get lost, but –”

“You'll deal with that when it happens.”

Dean looks at him. “I like him, Adam.”

“More than Richard?” Adam doesn't wait for an answer. “Con time.”

“What?”

“Con time!” says Adam, as though repeating it will make the penny drop. He grabs his Filofax, opens it up and rips out the 7th of February. “Right. We're going to make a _list_.”

“Adam, I don't want to make a list –”

“A list of all the negative points about Aidan, and all the negative points about Richard. If there are any.”

“What, like, making out with me and then metaphorically kicking me in the balls, you mean?”

“We'll start with Richard,” Adam goes on, ignoring him. “Pour us another glass of wine. Pour yourself one too, drunks are brutally honest.”

“I'm not doing this. At least make it pros _and_ cons.”

“You already _know_ their good points. That's the problem – you see Aidan through starry eyes. So. Richard first. Dish the dirt.”

Dean sighs. “I already told you. He has a strange habit of touching me and freaking out. I fucking feel like Rogue in X-men.”

“And that's probably down to some other issue he's dealing with which you would be fully informed about if you bothered to return the poor man's calls. So I'm not putting that one down.”

“Fuck you, put it down! You can't sugar coat Richard's and slag off Aidan.”

“I'm going to be equally fair to both, Mr fucking Hissy! Next point please.”

“He's... he's shy. Way too shy. Like he's scared of me or something. And he's got all these big plans but he hasn't gotten round to doing anything about them yet, so I think he must be a bit of a procrastinator. His job is...” Dean feels himself redden, even though Richard isn't around to hear him being so mean. “His job is boring.”

“You don't have to be ashamed to say that. Graham tells me about negotiating insurance instead of bedtime stories to put me to sleep.”

“And he's rich.”

“Rich? Why on earth would I jot that down as a con?”

“Because I feel like a pauper every time I'm with him! And I know it's not his fault, and he's really nice about it, but it makes me uncomfortable all the same.”

“You're mad,” says Adam, but he writes it down anyway. “Now Aidan.”

“Why don't you just do his list yourself since you're so set on hating him?”

“Maybe I will!” but then Adam sighs. “I don't hate him, Dean. I'm just trying to help you.”

“I know, I know... alright, fine. Aidan is... unpredictable. And I'm not a control freak, but sometimes I'm uncomfortable with uncertainty. But that's not to say I don't like that he's spontaneous, it's just... I don't know, one day he might be into one person and the next he could want someone else. I suppose that's a con.”

“It's definitely a con.”

Adam writes 'promiscuous' underneath 'unpredictable'.

“I didn't say he was promiscuous,” Dean mutters. “He's a bit pushy sometimes, I guess. I don't know, this is dumb. Let's do something else.”

“I'm putting down pushy.”

“Someone being pushy is hardly a reason to not want to date them. _You're_ pushy.”

“I'm not pushy, I'm forthright.”

“Okay, he's forthright then.”

“Outspoken.”

“ _Honest_.”

“He dresses awfully.”

“I like his clothes!”

“But you agree they're objectively awful. You said so yourself.”

“I did not! Now, I think that's enough bashing for one evening, don't you?” Dean snatches the paper away from him. “You may get some twisted satisfaction out of it, mister, but I don't.”

“But you've got an answer now.”

Dean gazes down at the paper. Aidan's list is about three times as long as Richard's (Adam's added in a few sneaky suggestions of his own in some limp attempt at getting Dean to see his way of thinking) but it hasn't really changed a thing. He is sitting in this bright yellow living room; he's sitting in the _evidence_ of Aidan's goodness.

“I'm gonna talk to Richard,” says Dean. “I am. But I daresay he won't be too miserable when I suggest we stop dating. It's probably best you didn't sway me, actually. I'm fairly certain he doesn't like me.”

“Right,” says Adam, clearly giving up. “And Aidan? What are you going to do with him?”

“I dunno,” says Dean, because it's entirely true. “Maybe I'll just try to kiss him and see if he lets me.”

“Which he probably will.”

Dean grins. “Your list failed, my friend.”

“No, no, I get it,” Adam sighs, slumping back in his seat. “Richard's the sensible forever and always. Aidan's your live in the moment. Your seize the day. Your _now_. It's invigorating. You can kid yourself you're twenty-one and your whole life is one big road trip, warm smell of colitas rising up through the air.”

It isn't Adam's intention, clearly, but Dean's smile only widens at this. He leans and pours them both some wine.

“He'll break your bloody heart, you know,” Adam says after a few moments.

“Probably,” says Dean, handing him a glass. Oddly enough, he isn't scared at all.


	10. Chapter 10

It's different once Adam's left and Dean's gone to bed and night time has melted into sobering day. His firm resolutions regarding both Aidan and Richard waver slightly, and now it's a bit more difficult to be sanguine, as it were.

It's Monday, and he has to go to work. No time to have it out with Richard and woo Aidan just now. Which is ridiculous, really; Dean's fairly sure Cary Grant wouldn't have taken a rain check on wooing the possible love of his life. Then again, Cary Grant didn't work as a Health and Safety consultant at Winter & Co., so it isn't really a fair comparison.

He peers into the bathroom mirror at his unusually scruffy face. He's allowed around five days' worth of stubble to sprout up, and although Dean is fair most of the hair on his body has a tendency to become curly and ever so slightly ginger when he lets it grow too much, so he uses precious breakfast time on a shave and a shower. It's best to stay clean and tidy, what with Dean now having decided he's probably in love with Aidan and whatnot.

Work is slow. This would normally be a blessing but, around lunch time, when Dean is sitting in the staff room picking flaccid tomatoes from a BLT, he suddenly comes to the numbing realisation that if he doesn't speak to Richard tonight he probably never will. Granted, much of yesterday's enthusiasm has seeped from his very bones with the help of sleep and solitude, but if he waits till tomorrow the juices of optimism will turn sour and soon be gone altogether. He'll never have closure with Richard, and Aidan will probably find some burly bloke only marginally more attractive than Dean in the face but significantly musclier, and they'll go off together and buy a bungalow in Ibiza and share a top-of-the-range scooter to get around. The scooter will probably eventually kill one or both of them, but at least they lived their lives like James Dean.

So yeah. If Dean doesn't get a move on that will happen. Like, objectively. It's a fact.

He has an opera house, a tide mill, three terraced houses and the filing of papers for an 18th century fire station to deal with before he's allowed to leave, and even then he's late getting home because James needs him to help fix whatever's been eating up the paper in the photocopying machine.

But get home he does, and he calls Richard straight away to avoid putting it off. The challenge, clearly, is to sound calm and unaffected when Richard picks up. But when Richard _does_ pick up the first thing Dean blurts out is, “What's happening?” which is weird because he hasn't said “what's happening” since 1995 when he actually thought Shawn Hunter was pretty cool.

Richard doesn't tell him what's happening. Instead he says, “ _Dean_. Goodness, I've been wanting to speak to you for ages.”

“I'm sorry,” says Dean, “I've been... I've been all over the place recently.”

That's the best thing to say because it could be taken in two ways: _mentally_ all over the place – which is the truth – but also physically. Which isn't true, but Richard doesn't know that. For all he knows Dean has been so busy trekking up and down England's green and pleasant land he just hasn't found time to return a single one of Richard's calls.

Dean is happy to talk over the phone, but it's actually Richard who suggests they meet up.

“I wasn't sure on etiquette for this sort of thing,” he says when he's opened his front door and led Dean into the kitchen. “I mean, I know we didn't see each other for very long, but I still wouldn't have felt right leaving things hanging in the air.”

Dean isn't sure on the etiquette either. Most people, after making it abundantly clear that they find kissing you repulsive, would bugger off and leave it at that, never see you again but, most importantly, not really care either. But just because that's what would happen most often doesn't make it right. Richard isn't like most people. Dean doesn't need to have known him for years to realise this.

So they've only shared a few dates, but Richard still wants to explain himself to Dean, and he wants to do it in person. He is such a bloody good person it would make Dean sick were he not so goddamned charmed by it all.

“Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee? There's cold stuff in the fridge,” Richard offers, hand on the fridge door.

“I'm fine, thanks,” says Dean, and Richard drops his hand.

“I might as well cut to it,” he murmurs. “No point being mysterious. Dean, I was _so_ ready to start something new in my life. Not just relationship-wise, I just mean I really wanted to start fresh all round. It's been a tough year and I was finally getting myself sorted, and I really... I really did like you. _Do_ like you, of course. I think you're wonderful.”

Dean wonders if this is merely an appeal to flattery. Even if it is, he rather appreciates it anyway.

“And then, two weeks ago, Lee came back. Threw something of a spanner in the works,” says Richard.

“Lee?”

“Didn't I mention him by name? That day in the café?”

“You mentioned an ex... who moved to the States.”

Richard nods. His arms are folded tightly across his chest, making him appear meek in spite of his height.

“I suppose I don't... give myself away easily,” he murmurs. “Do you know what I mean by that? It's difficult for me to open up to people. I know that, I'm _working_ on that but it means that I can't bear having someone very close to me suddenly exit out of my life. And he was very close to me. He lived here. _We_ lived here, for seven years nearly.”

And that, Dean realises, that is why the first thing he noticed about Richard's living room was that it in no way looked as though one bachelor lived alone here. And suddenly he feels like an intruder.

“I thought he was joking when he phoned – that night you and I went to the pub with Graham and Adam actually – and said he was back here. Back in London. I didn't know what to make of it. You... can understand that, can't you?”

“Course I can,” says Dean. If Jared came back now, things would be different. Perhaps not to the extent that Dean would get back together with him – if Jared were so inclined – but enough, perhaps, that he would at least think twice about throwing another man on to a bed and kissing him.

“I hate to have messed you about, Dean,” says Richard. “Especially since Lee and I mightn't even...” He stops himself, shaking his head. “I'm sure you don't want to hear about it. I just want to say I'm sorry. For having wasted your time.”

Dean thinks back to Adam, to conversations regarding time truly wasted.

“Time you enjoy wasting isn't wasted time,” he says, like some kind of wise old... well, wise old musician.

Richard smiles this strange, almost sad smile. “Well, I enjoyed it,” he says softly.

“So did I.”

-

Evening sun low in the sky, Dean walks part way home – a stroll through Kensington Gardens, then a bus ride to Grosvenor Road to see the easy lap of the Thames, warmed amber with summer – and remembers that at points less trying in his life, he finds time to love London.

It's a city that gives and tries; one that tells you boldly it cannot solve your problems, but it can romanticize them. You can drink your woes away at home, quite easily, but alternatively you can drink them away in Fitzroy Tavern, pretend you're sipping Victory Gin in George Orwell's seat, pretend you're the tortured observer on a crowd of uneducated Proles, and though you'll still end up drunk and sad and lonely and – since it's London – penniless, at least you can feel like a hero while you do it. You can walk down Savile Row and play the beggar, across Carnaby Street to kid yourself you're some starved bohemian poet, through Leicester Square to realise how small and insignificant you are. It's a kind of catharsis. London can't solve your problems, but it can you give you the appropriate soundtrack, the pathetic fallacy, the big shop windows so you can stare soulfully at your reflection.

It's a friend, in that respect. The only city confident enough to poke fun at your emotional turmoil, but allow you to glory in it at the same time.

And Dean does, as he heads back into Camberwell. Everything is knotted and complicated, and his stomach flips every second at the thought of what might happen with Aidan, at the thought of the _unknown_ ; but it's a reminder that he's not just alive but living, that he possesses emotions beyond the every-man’s contempt for his nine-to-five job.

He just hopes Aidan possesses the same ones.

Course, he probably doesn't. Well, _possibly_ doesn't. Dean isn't stupid. He realises that grabbing on to any fact – that Aidan makes him smile, that Aidan is beautiful, that Aidan slept with him the first day they met – to make Aidan fit into his heart doesn't make any of it _fate_.

Dean's jolted from his thoughts of Aidan Turner by his phone ringing, just as he gets through the front door. He looks at the screen. Adam. That's strange. His rule of assuming any phone call from a close friend means something big has happened works the other way round too; he only calls if he's got news, or if he's drunk and giddy. The day is tricklin into evening now. He _could_ be drunk and giddy. Dean picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Hey, what's up?” No answer. “Are you alright?”

Adam sighs. “You spoke to Richard yet?”

“Yeah, I just got back. Literally just stepped through my front door.”

“Oh right. Was gonna say you needn't bother. Speaking to him, I mean.”

“Are you – is everything alright?”

“Not really.” Adam pauses. “Wedding's off.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean the wedding is off. Graham and I are no longer to be wed. No wedding shall there be.” He sighs again, shakier this time, and Dean can hear muffled snuffling in the background which is probably Lloyd. “Fucking hell, Dean. What a day.”

“Why did he – what did Graham say? Is he there now?”

“What makes you think it was his idea?”

“You mean you...”

“I suggested it, yes. No point kidding myself anymore, darling, is there? The past month's been a complete mess and I'm _losing_ him, Dean. I just know the wedding would have been the final straw. I _can't_ have him leave me.” Adam takes this deep, shuddering breath that rattles right through the phone. “So. Just phoning to tell you you don't have to worry about awkward seating plans anymore.”

“Look, I'm coming round.”

“No. Please don't.”

“But –”

“You're the first person I've told, Dean. The only person, cos I care what you think. But I just want to be on my own for a bit. Just... needed to let someone know before I, you know, bubbled up and went mad.”

And Dean, because he's a terrible friend, can only find a response from the Bumper Book of Soap Opera Stock Answers, and he says limply, “Adam, mate, you know I'm here for you,” even though he wants to say a thousand other things instead.

And Adam says, “Course I do,” and then he says goodbye, and then he hangs up.

Dean stands there in the hallway and thinks, if Adam and Graham can't do it, he hasn't got a hope in hell.

-

He waits a few hours before calling Aidan. He makes dinner and watches it in front of Animal Park to distract himself. There's a gorilla peeling lemons with his fingers, and the park rangers are applauding him from afar. Dean thinks, why are they applauding him? I could do that with my eyes closed. Then he thinks: of course I could. I'm not a gorilla.

The distraction only works for so long. He keeps glancing at his phone, confused and mildly terrified. It's because of Adam and Graham, really. Adam and Graham were frequently sickening with their constant PDA, pet names and baby talk, but they were also Dean's shining example of What Love Is. They were inseparable. They were a _they_. Never Adam and Graham, always Adamandgraham. Only now they're not, and if they can't make it then nobody can. Dean is scared of calling Aidan, because he's suddenly scared of rejection. There, Officer: a confession.

But at the same time he desperately needs to call him, and not just because he wants to tell him how he feels. Dean needs to ask him something, something which immediately began niggling at him as soon as Adam hung up. Something which has stuck with Dean, albeit faintly, at the back of his mind since the engagement party.

So he turns off the TV and puts down his plate and after several long breaths finds Aidan's number and calls it.

The phone rings and rings and rings, and just when Dean has given up hope, Aidan answers.

“So!” he says. “You're not dead after all. Funny how that's always my immediate assumption when I don't see you for days at a time. Maybe I just don't want to face the fact that you're willingly avoiding me. What is it? Is it the colour in the living room? Is it finally driving you mad?”

Dean blinks and gives a slow, stupid, “No.”

There's a silence, and then Aidan goes on. “Are you going to elaborate or am I going to get to the point of your call by process of elimination?”

Dean shakes his head, snapping out of his daze. “Sorry.”

“What's wrong? You sound out of it. Everything okay?”

“I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Ask away. Though you'll have to be quick, I've got lasagne in the oven and I need both hands. Those hot dishes are a bitch.”

“I just wondered... Aidan, how did you know?”

“What?”

“How _do_ you know? Like, know everything, before it happens. Before anyone's even told you. You're always -”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“You're always pointing things out, things about me. And at the engagement party, you knew Richard was recently single, you knew he was upset about it. I didn't even know until he told me. And you... you said Graham was scared about getting married.”

“So?”

“So how do you always know?”

“Just keep my eyes open, I suppose. I told you I was nosy. What's brought this on, eh?” Aidan pauses. “Hey, Adam and Graham are alright, aren't they?”

“They're alright,” Dean confirms weakly, because it isn't really his place to say otherwise.

“Are _you_ alright?”

“I'm fine.”

“Can I come and see you?”

“Why?”

“Well I think you're lying to me.”

“You don't have to ask to come see me,” and then Dean wants to bite his tongue for sounding so pathetic and needy.

It takes twenty-three minutes – Dean counts every minute on the kitchen clock – but true to his word Aidan arrives and knocks brightly on the door, and the first thing Dean says when he lets him in is, “What about your lasagne?”

“Turned the oven off and left it. See how chivalrous I am?”

Dean does see. The amount of people _he'd_ put before food is worryingly low.

“I can make you something else, if you like? Or a drink? I can make you tea? Or you can have wine? There's wine in the fridge. Half a bottle, I think. It was on offer at Aldi, I don't... stock it regularly.” God, he's turning into Richard. Aidan shakes his head and sinks on to the couch with all the ease of a man who actually lives here.

“Don't stand over there, come and sit with me,” he says, as though Dean _doesn't_ live here. “Come on, sunbeam, gonna tell me what's the dealio?”

“We don't have to talk about my problems every time you're here,” says Dean. “I mean, I appreciate you offering to listen but I feel awful throwing everything on to you all the time. Tell me about you. Tell me about your week.”

“My week?”

“Your week. Work, your friends – God, who are your _friends_ , Aidan?” Dean leans forward on the sofa, his face cupped in both hands. “I just realised I don't know anything about you.”

“Nowt to tell,” Aidan shrugs, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. He's wearing black skinny things and a grey t-shirt and a denim jacket ripped in two places. God, he's a mess. Dean really wants to kiss him.

“Don't be mysterious, Aid, there's always something to tell.”

“Well what do you wanna know, Clouseau?”

“I don't know, I don't mind. Your hopes, your dreams, your fears! Anything!”

“Oh, well. That's easy: love, love, solitude. In that order.”

Dean feels his heart plummet out the bottom of his ribcage. “Do you mean that?”

Aidan hums thoughtfully. “On a broader level, yeah. But when I say love I mean... you know, not just George Bailey and Mary Hatch love – though that'd be nice too – but I want to enjoy life. Always. And I can't if I'm alone or isolated. I'm afraid I'm one of those nightmarish extroverts you only hear about in novels.”

“I don't think you're nightmarish,” Dean mumbles, and Aidan laughs.

“Well you're a nice guy, aren't you, Dean? So yeah, there's my edgy little dream. Dead artistic, isn't it? Sort of James Dean-esque, I think. Live fast, die young, try not to get put into a care home at seventy by well-meaning relatives.”

“Are you taking the piss out of your own ambitions?”

“Of course I am. Life would be utterly miserable if I took myself seriously.”

Dean doesn't miss what happens next; Aidan's smile wavers slightly. He gets up and wanders over to the window and lifts it up halfway, dropping on to the seat beneath it.

“You have a really nice view, you know,” he says. “The trees smell fantastic. My bedroom overlooks a ramshackle Kwik Save. Truth be told, I don't much like living in Brixton anymore. I've lived in Dublin, Waterford, went to uni in Belfast. I was going through a Seamus Heaney phase and applied to Queen's. Then I went through a _Dylan Thomas_ phase and moved to Swansea. Thought I'd find apple towns and house high hay. Found concrete and tyres. And lots of sand.” He huffs out a laugh, and dips his hand out into the night air, weaves his fingers a little like there's invisible silk running between them. “Lived in Sri Lanka for a bit, even. It was absolutely incredible till it became a drag. Meaning till I ran out of money.”

“What did you do for cash in the first place?” asks Dean. “Did you work there?”

“I wrote for a bit when I lived in Wales. One of those city newspapers everyone takes and no one reads. Reviews and stuff, you know. Saved up just enough to get me out of the country, and ran dry after about a month. I was never much good at planning.”

It sounds almost like a confession, and something warm starts in Dean's belly. He wanders over with no intentions, but when he gets there he finds himself sinking down on to the window seat next to Aidan.

“I went home after Sri Lanka,” says Aidan. “I had to live with my _parents_. They were so smug, so I moved again as soon as I could.”

“To London?”

“To London!”

“Why?”

Aidan thinks about it. “I'd never been before.”

“Right. Of course. And is it everything you hoped and dreamed it would be?”

“And more, Deano, and more.”

He's looking at Dean now, their hips touching, and fingers nearly getting there too. Too close. Dean looks away, staring forwards at the sofa. When he lifts his head to look at Aidan sideways, Aidan's still watching him, nibbling on his bottom lip like he's got some big secret dying to brim over.

“I'm not totally lacking in self-awareness though,” he murmurs. “I know it's not cost effective, living in London when you don't really have to but... this city.” He shakes his head. “Christ, this city. Its people. There's just something about it all.”

He smiles at Dean, and Dean finds himself staring at Aidan's mouth, at that beautiful curve of lip and strong jut of stubbled chin beneath. He wants to press his lips there. He swallows.

“What is it, d'you think?” he asks in a voice which cracks. He wants Aidan to kiss him so much he can hardly speak.

Aidan's half-smile moves an inch closer to Dean's. “I'm still trying to figure it out,” he says, and he puts his lips on Dean's and kisses him, speculatively, and Dean kisses back, so they're kissing. They're kissing.

He isn't sure how long they kiss, only that Aidan's mouth is soft and wet and it's bliss, bliss when Aidan lifts a hand to cup Dean's face and sighs Dean's name into his mouth like a whispered secret.

“You've no idea,” he says quietly, when they pull away at last.

“Of what?”

“How you are.” Aidan licks his cherry-red lips. “I think you're fucking fantastic, Dean O'Gorman. City's finest.”

Dean lets out a shuddering breath. “I don't think you know how easy you just made this for me.”

“Oh fuck, what? Did you need a reason to smack me across the face?”

“No! _Hit_ you? I needed a reason to know it was alright for me to tell you, like a total sap, that I don't think I've, erm... really stopped thinking about you since the day we met. I mean, I know I haven't. I've thought about you... a fair amount. Like, quite a bit.” Dean shifts uncomfortably in his seat, unsure if this particular revelation is a bit too dramatic even for Aidan.

But Aidan, he just smiles.

“Well,” he says, “not exactly Mr Darcy. Barely even _Mark_ Darcy, but –”

Dean kicks him lightly. “Shut up. I'm baring my soul here.”

“You saying you like me, Humphrey Bogart?”

“I've no idea why I do,” says Dean, but he does.

And the sex, when it happens – because of course it does – is _different_ this time. They end up stretched longways across Dean's bed, Aidan on top, pinning Dean's hands down by his head. Aidan's own fingers are longer, slimmer, and they lock snugly between Dean's and don't let go as their bodies rub lazily together through the thin cotton layers of their boxers.

Dean is smaller, but he's never considered himself intrinsically submissive. Now though he reacts to every touch, every whispered word with eager little mewls, and he wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

This time, too, Aidan likes to _touch_. He trails his fingers up Dean's face, thumbs at his bottom lip, strokes the sensitive skin where jaw meets ear. Every kiss is open-mouthed and sweet this time; this time every kiss leaves Dean wanting for more. Aidan stretches across to turn on the bedside lamp, and Dean only feels self-conscious for the most fleeting of moments.

“Tell me what you like, Mr O'Gorman,” he murmurs, the ghost of a grin painting his face as he trails those long fingers up Dean's chest.

Everything Dean likes flies out the window and clatters to the ground below. Aidan's looking at Dean _hungrily_ , brown eyes darker still with want and breath coming in little pants in spite of that perpetually cocky tone.

It's only this fleeting display of vulnerability that gives Dean his voice back.

“I like to feel it,” he says, in a low husk of a voice. So Aidan obliges, undresses them both and shimmies down the bed until he's level with Dean's cock, already hard and pink against his belly, and his lips and throat and _sinful_ tongue are rough when they swallow Dean down and suck him fast and messy. He sinks his slicked fingers into Dean, one after the other, three in the space of two minutes that Dean can feel corkscrewing into him so fast he thinks he's going to come like this, on Aidan's agonizing, too-fast fingers.

Their bodies are damp with sweat, sticking to the summer-hot sheets, by the time Aidan spreads Dean's legs apart, pushes his knees up, pushes _into_ him and sinks forward with his eyes squeezed shut and his fingertips boring bruises into Dean's skin.

He fucks him hard till the tight pressure becomes more bearable and then, when several sweating minutes have passed in a flurry of rutting bodies, Aidan slows down. His lashes are wet with reflexive tears when he opens his eyes, and he's grinning, red-mouthed. He thumbs over Dean's abdomen, soothing the tight, tight muscles. He presses in deep and slow.

“Beautiful boy,” he murmurs, panting. Dean closes his eyes, feels colour blooming behind the lids as he teeters on the edge of fucking oblivion.

He opens his eyes when he feels soft lips on his neck, and now they're this close, the two of them pressed chest to shuddering chest, Dean wraps arms and legs tight round Aidan's body, pulls him in and doesn't let him go and chants his name in quiet breaths like a prayer.

He comes with a twist of his hips and Aidan's hand around his cock and his lips on Dean's mouth, tongue licking in, teeth biting down, and it's mere seconds before Aidan follows with a shout, half caught in his throat. He doesn't pull out for a while, makes no move to clean up, and Dean keeps his arms around Aidan's heaving shoulders and twists his fingers in damp, black hair and kisses him over and over, because this is either the last time or the first of many, but Dean doesn't want to take any chances.

Afterwards, lying face to face, Aidan traces lazy fingers over the curve of Dean's bare shoulder.

“You've freckles all over,” he says.

“You're dark and hairy,” Dean mumbles back.

“I know. I can't help it.”

“I can't help my freckles.”

“Good.”

Dean nods and closes his eyes, feels hot slumber gripping him with loose, coaxing fingers.

“Good,” he murmurs. Then he falls asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

They kiss some more the next morning, but it's different with a risen sun and dry mouths and uncomfortable, sweaty sheets knotted around their bodies. The spark of recklessness is the first thing you notice is gone when you wake up with somebody new in your bed.

That's not to say Aidan looks regretful or confused or even marginally uncomfortable. He seems his usual self, albeit sleepier and less snappy with that smart mouth of his. He actually looks across at Dean and gazes drowsily at his bed-head, and Dean can _see_ those dark eyes cataloguing a plethora of cockatoo jokes and alpaca-related quips, but in the end Aidan just grunts and decides not to bother.

“I've work in a bit,” he says around a yawn.

“Me too,” says Dean, reaching out to tuck a stray black curl behind Aidan's ear, running his fingers over the sleepy warmth of his face.

“Pity. I was gonna suggest bunkin' off for the day.”

“Bunking off? And doing what, going down the arcade and getting chips?”

Although at present Aidan is clearly half-asleep, he still manages a bright laugh. “Yeah, and then I thought we could nick Mars Bars from the newsagent's and get the bus to Brighton with my pocket money.”

“Go to the fairground at the pier.”

“Mm, that'd be nice.”

They smile at each other, allowing themselves to entertain the fantasy for a tiny moment. Aidan rises onto an elbow and kisses Dean's shoulder, then his neck and mouth, with sleep-rough lips, his leg slipping between Dean's. Dean hooks a calf around him, pulling Aidan closer, and once again is struck by how rewarding honesty can be.

“D'you want to take a shower?” he asks when they break apart. He thinks about adding 'together', but even after sex – _amazing_ sex, granted– with Aidan he's still just mildly conservative Dean O'Gorman, not some kind of sultry lothario.

“Are you... trying to tell me something?” Aidan murmurs.

“I'm trying to be a good host.”

“Of course. Well, you can go first, Mr. Good Host. I need food before soap.”

Aidan finds his boxers on the floor and pulls them over his skinny hips, following with an unnecessarily long and languid stretch. Sunlight bounces off him from the window, back-lighting him so he looks like a curly-haired Jesus on an iconostasis. Dean can practically hear the angels singing in exultation. Glory hallelujah, this man has just spent the night with you.

Dean gets up a little more sluggishly and trails to the bathroom in order to stick to his firm resolution that both of them are definitely going to work today like responsible adults and definitely not calling in sick like irresponsible hoodlums. After a quick shower, he looks into the mirror to see if happiness has changed him.

It hasn't. He's flushed, but it's not so much a healthy sex-and-summer glow as the fact that the fucked plumbing means his shower only has two settings: feel the frozen loins of a naked Inuk, or the licking tongues of a thousand fiery demons. This morning he has gone with the latter; he has been well and truly licked.

When he goes into the living room, Aidan is fully dressed, standing in the middle of the room, totally still.

“I called you for the shower like five minutes ago,” says Dean, pulling a tie around his neck. “Didn't you hear me?”

Aidan turns around. “What's this?” He's got something in his hand. A slip of paper.

“I don't know, what does it say?”

“Well,” says Aidan, “it appears to be some sort of list. With my name on it.”

Dean's insides freeze.

“Um,” he swallows. “Where did you find that?”

Wordlessly, Aidan gestures to the coffee table.

“Why were you going through my stuff?” Dean asks, though he can feel his fingers growing slippery against the silk of his tie and he knows that isn't quite the right thing to say.

“Going through your stuff!” Aidan explodes. “I picked up the TV guide to check the date, and this was right there! So don't act like I'm doing something fucking weird here, Dean.”

“Alright, let's both just calm down.”

He's never seen Aidan angry before. But then he thinks, well, he _isn't_ angry. He's upset, if those confused brown eyes are anything to go by, and it's the worst feeling in the world, seeing this.

Dean takes a deep breath. “I promise it's not as bad as it looks.”

“Well it's pretty bad from where I'm standing. Surprisingly, I don't take too kindly to being called a...” Aidan glances at the list in his hands: “Pushy, outspoken, badly-dressed slut.”

“It doesn't say slut! Does it... say slut?”

“I'm paraphrasing, it says promiscuous. I know what you're getting at.”

“ _I'm_ not getting at _any_ thing. I didn't write that, it's not even my handwriting!”

“Whose is it, then?”

Dean stops short. He can't drop Adam in it. He's just called off his wedding, for Christ's sake. So like a total prick Dean sighs instead of answering, and Aidan gives this really fucking unimpressed _sneer_ and shoves the paper into Dean's chest.

Dean glances down at it. Dear God, it says meretricious. _Meretricious_. Hopefully Aidan doesn't know what meretricious means.

“I thought you'd have an explanation – preferably one that we could have a good old laugh about – but you don't, do you?” says Aidan. “Now I think about it, I don't really know how you could explain this as being anything other than what it clearly is. And now this is really, really awkward.”

By now Dean is eyeing the living room window, wondering whether or not to throw himself out of it.

They begin to speak over one another.

“Aidan...”

“– I'm not even that fussed about what it _says_ –”

“– Well you obviously are –”

“– I mean, I've been called a gobby slut plenty of times, that isn't what bothers me really –”

“– I don't think you're a gobby slut, I'd _never_ call you a gobby slut –”

“– And it's not like you aren't perfectly within your rights to acknowledge my flaws –”

“– I mean you're a _good_ talker, I _like_ when you talk –”

“– It's the fact that there are two columns here and the left side is headed with some other bloke's name.”

Dean closes his mouth. _Well_ , he thinks, _fair enough_.

“I didn't even realise you were still seeing him,” Aidan says quietly. “Didn't know there was some kind of _competition_ going on between me and Mr Bloody Universe.”

“Christ, Aid, there's no competition! I'm not seeing him, he's not even interested in me.”

“Oh, so I'm your fall-back.”

“No! I didn't mean it like that, don't twist my words –”

“I'm not twisting anything.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Why are you angry? You have no right to be angry.”

“Because you're being... _difficult_.”

Aidan snatches the paper back and gives it a shake. “Maybe you should add 'difficult' to your list, then. Oh wait, it's already here – right between forthright and meretricious.” He scoffs. “Meretricious. Who the fuck even uses words like that?”

 _Not me_ , Dean wants to yell, but all that comes out of his mouth is a faint grunting noise like a confused dog.

He reaches across to take Aidan's hand, but Aidan shakes him off.

“I'm gonna be late for work,” he says, running two hands through his messy hair. “Please don't run after me or anything embarrassing like that. Having it out with me in the streets of Camberwell isn't going to make me any less pissed off with you.”

Dean thinks he ought to do something to stop him from going, and so puts one foot in front of the other, then wavers and steps back again. He is useless.

“I'm sorry,” he says, but nothing more.

Aidan looks at him from the door, lips pursed, considering. He steps forward, and for one bright moment Dean thinks he's forgiven. Aidan puts the slip of paper, the crumpled 7th of February, down on the coffee table.

“Keep it for reference,” he says. Then he goes.

-

You know those team-building activities they make you do on your first day of high school where they give you four sheets of newspaper and half a roll of sellotape and tell you to make the Eiffel Tower?

That's how Dean imagines his apology to Aidan will go.

Because he'll have to do it. Apologise, that is. Properly, this time. Not a limp “sorry” from halfway across the room. It will have to be an apology with flowers, and self-deprecating greeting cards emblazoned with sad puppies, and lots of beggin', beggin' in the dim hope that Aidan will put his loving hand out.

But why would he? What reason has Dean given Aidan to feel anything like the cherished lead in a black and white romance? 

What's he ever even _given_ Aidan, full stop? _But Aidan has never asked for anything_ , his mind screams at him, _and if he did you would give it to him. Probably. Funds permitting_.

All he's ever given Aidan is a few cups of tea and a list containing his flaws.

Why should Aidan forgive him? Aidan who is _perpetually_ understanding? Aidan who has... never... actually... done anything wrong.

The realisation hits Dean in the middle of a staff meeting about the demolition of a cowshed in Hackney. Through it all _Aidan_ has been the victim; not Dean with his gloomy stories of ex-boyfriend betrayal, or Richard with his complex emotions worthy of a hardback James Patterson, not even Adam with the sudden abandonment of his wedding.

Adam has treated Aidan like some crafty villain from day one, and in turn has led Dean to believe the same thing, that Aidan isn't to be trusted, that he's fickle and irresponsible and coy, and that his everlasting sense of humour somehow makes up for it all. Aidan's always been the bad guy. But Aidan's never done a thing wrong.

Dean on the other hand? Sitting in that viewing room, staring stony-eyed at comatose cows, he realises that, where Aidan is concerned, he's never done a thing right.

-

He doesn't know what to do once the working day is over. He tries to stay at the office as long as possible, pretending paperwork pertaining to the fire exits of a Little Chef on the M25 needs to be sorted _right now_ , even though it's been sitting on his desk for three weeks gathering dust.

His boss appears anxious by his enthusiasm, and implores him to go home.

Dean doesn't particularly want to go home. The thought of being on his own in that yellow living room, the backdrop to both dizzying kisses and humiliating arguments, is awful. But he can't go and see Adam, and he can't go and see Graham, and he has other friends but he isn't sure they'd want to hang out with him on a Tuesday night. They all have families. Commitments. Tabletop dinners to cook and primary school homework to figure out and BBC News to rage about.

Dean can't compete with the comfortable mundanity of British family life, so he gets on the bus and ends up in a café in Brixton, somewhat near to where Aidan lives. He comes here with Adam sometimes when Adam's finished work at the shopping centre round the corner. Now Dean sits here alone with a coffee too hot for the weather, in a booth with a greasy red checked tablecloth.

“Rotten day?” says the waiter, out of the blue.

Dean looks up, then around. “I'm sorry, are you talking to me?”

The waiter is a man of no more than twenty-five, lanky and tall – awkwardly so – with big ears and a shaved head prickled with acne and a broom in his hands. He holds it out to indicate the otherwise empty café.

“No one else about, is there?” he says. “Like a fuckin' graveyard in 'ere.”

Dean is torn between wondering if waiters are allowed to swear at customers, and asking if the man is implying Dean's old enough to feasibly be dead. 

In the end he decides on a quick smile, and then looks away again. He tries not to be judgemental of strangers, but he has automatically jumped to the conclusion that this man is the kind of man who might try to blind Dean with a spoon.

“Why you look so low then, mate?” the man asks, because clearly he is immune to blatant displays of rejection. “Trouble with the missus?”

“You could say that.”

“She dump you?”

Dean looks into his coffee cup and wonders if he could swallow the whole thing in one without burning his tongue. He swills it around a little, willing it to cool down.

“No, no, nothing like that.” It's not exactly a lie, is it? He and Aidan were never together. Not really.

The waiter appears sceptical. “I'd dump my bird if she looked as miserable as you.”

“Well then I imagine that relationship wouldn't be built on particularly strong foundations to begin with.”

“Eh?”

“Nothing.”

The man glances around thoughtfully, propped up by his broom. “Dunno what it is 'bout this place that attracts the saddos.”

 _Not your charm, obviously_ , Dean wants to say. He gives a tight smile instead and swills his coffee harder.

“You know what my granddad used to say?” the man continues.

 _No, and I literally do not care. I could try to care, but it probably wouldn't work_. “What's that?”

“Smile, 'e said, or the sun may never shine.”

He's got that wrong, Dean's fairly sure of it. That isn't a proper quote. It doesn't even make sense. Since when did a smile dictate the weather? Isn't it “smile, it might never happen”? That would be more appropriate: Smile, Dean! Aidan might not hate you after all.

“That's a nice saying,” he says politely. He downs the coffee in two gulps, feeling the hot water skin his tongue, then fishes in his pocket for his wallet.

“Innit just?” says the waiter. “Used to say it 'bout my nan. She shone when _'e_ was happy, you see?”

Dean shakes his head. Not in a _no, I don't see_ way; more in a _you are clearly insane, please stop conversing with me_ way. He doesn't need advice from acne-scarred Brixton waiters and, thinking that allowing a quote about sunshine and smiles to resonate with him would be just a _little_ too Hollywood-twee, Dean chucks a few coins on the table, says goodbye and leaves. He's worried he's being followed for a full two blocks, until he finally looks behind himself and finds the streets around him empty.

 _Empty like my_ _ **soul**_.

No, he needs to stop that. His soul isn't empty at all. It's perfectly fine, for God's sake. His legs are too, if the way they're walking him towards Aidan's street is any indication.

It's not some startling revelation, it's not like in a cartoon where someone looks down and finds their limbs have taken on a mind of their own and are moving against that person's will. He wants to go to Aidan, he wants to speak to him, needs to, in fact, if he wants to get any sleep tonight. He tells himself the coffee has given him the energy to do this, the quick burst he needs. It probably hasn't, but a placebo effect is better than nothing, and he clings to it as he passes along the tacky parade of shops and that shady looking Chinese and finds number fifty-five, sleepy and indifferent, the way he left it.

He rings the doorbell. It's been fixed since his last visit. Predictably, no one answers.

Dean isn't stupid. He knows Aidan's in. For one thing, who stays at a pet shop past six o'clock? It's nearing that time now. Secondly, he remembers which room is Aidan's – the left bay at the front - and though the curtains are closed he can hear music coming from inside. There's no way he could have misheard the bell, but Dean rings it again for good measure. Then he tries knocking.

Then he tries... oh God. He tries _speaking_.

“Aidan?”

Nobody actually tries this outside of cinema. This is not the done thing. He is doing it anyway. Anarchy in the UK!

“Aid? Will you please come and answer the door? I'm...”

He's what? Not cold, can't use that as an excuse. He hasn't been cold for a month now. Sorry? He's definitely sorry, but can he actually push himself to apologise in public, on the front step of a maybe-lover's door?

“I'm sorry.”

The answer is yes. Twice, in fact.

“I'm really sorry.”

Nothing. Aidan is ignoring him. And with good reason.

Dean sighs, feels it shudder all the way through him from head to foot, and steps away from the door.

“Alright, you don't wanna speak to me,” he says, voice low in case any of Aidan's neighbours might be listening in. “I wouldn't want to speak to me either. But listen to me first cos I know you _are_ listening, I can hear your... anyway. I just want to say that I'm sorry, and I never wanted to upset you. I never wanted to reach the point where I had to come grovelling because I never wanted to do anything that would put either of us in that position but I can't stand the thought of you being angry at me, so... so just know that if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, you need to tell me. Because I'm not good at this kind of thing, Aid, okay? You know I can't reel off all the Tyrone Power one-liners like you can, so just bear with me here.”

He pauses, and then there doesn't seem to be much else to say.

“And the list,” he says, and he swallows, hard, like there's something stuck in his throat. “That list was fucking stupid and me saying I never wanted you to find it is stupid too because I never should have let it happen, right, but having said that? Some of it... it's not all a lie.”

Oh God, he needs to word this carefully. This could be the make or fucking break of everything. But without Aidan talking back, this one-way conversation is actually making things easier. He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I mean, some of it is. Like meretricious, I swear I don't use words like that. I sometimes misspell my own fucking address, so... but I mean, some of the other stuff... you _are_ kind of up front and chatty but that doesn't mean you're _flawed_. Those things on that list, I like you _because_ of them, not in spite of them. You know? Aidan?” Another sigh. “Please?”

Nothing at first, but then the music turns off. Dean holds his breath. Moments later, the front door inches open.

A man is standing there, in a pair of boxer shorts and a vest. It is not Aidan.

“Hello, mate,” says not-Aidan. “Erm, this is a bit awkward, yeah...”

Dean is staring, still struggling to comprehend. “It is a bit.”

“Thing is, I'm just Aidan's flatmate. He's not actually home.”

“Right. No, of course.”

“I liked it, though. What you said. Dead thoughtful. Maybe leave out the bit about the grovelling, makes it sound like you're doing him a favour by apologising. But other than that...”

“Okay. Thanks.” Dean nods. “Bye, then.”

He walks back down the garden path, back down the street, gets on the bus and goes home.

-

By evening, melancholy has set in. Dean finds he needs a long bath and a stiff drink. He stocks very little alcohol in his home, and doesn't own a bath at all, so settles for a shower and a cup of tea.

They don't help much. Funny, that.

Then his phone buzzes. Dean regards it with dread. Even if it isn't Aidan, it's bound to be something bad. An upset Adam, perhaps. A distraught Graham. A regretful Richard.

But no, it is Aidan. Asking if he can come round.

 _you dont have to ask to come round_ , Dean texts back. He wonders if it sounds blunt. He means for it to sound cute and reminiscent, and he toys with the idea of adding a kiss and then, deciding that would seem like he's assuming too much, he doesn't.

Then he waits. It takes longer this time, at least an hour, and while Dean's alone he sits on the edge of the couch literally biting his nails, gnawing on his thumbnail until he glances down with surprise to find it bleeding.

How can he be nervous? He wasn't nervous before, standing outside Aidan's house, having a one-man conversation through the goddamned window. But then, he was full of caffeine and early evening vigour, _hope_. Real, actual hope. Now it has slipped from his very being like slime, trickled off down some gutter on his way home. Now he feels tense, feels sick with it.

Twenty minutes later Aidan is standing on Dean's doorstep, nibbling his bottom lip like a child. He is back. He came back.

Maybe he forgot something.

“My jacket was not one of the things I granted you custody of when I left, so.” He murmurs this, with the ghost of a smile, barely looking Dean in the eye.

God, he actually _did_ come back because he forgot something. How embarrassing. Dean finds the denim jacket on the window-seat in his bedroom. He remembers tearing it off Aidan and flinging it over there last night, then running his hands up the fever-hot skin of Aidan's arms.

He passes the jacket over.

“Thanks,” Aidan mumbles. He cuddles it to his chest like a blanket. The space between them is silent. Then, “About this morning...”

“Aidan...”

“It was interesting.”

“I'm really –”

“I learnt some things about myself. And, well, I don't really appreciate you treating me like a statistic or something that can be defined with a few adjectives on a diary page. I'm still a human being, you know.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“Just because I don't have a career or a mortgage doesn't mean I'm not a person.”

“I know.”

“Well I mean, I still have _feelings_ , right?” Aidan bundles his jacket up tighter in his arms, like a shield. Frowns and shakes his head. “Thing is, I wouldn't normally care and I'd get on with my day, yeah? They're just words. But it matters because it's you.”

Dean stands there quietly, listening to this self-conscious murmur, and feels something like nerves, but not, start in his belly. Hope, perhaps.

“So here's how I see it,” says Aidan. “If you like me – and honestly, I _have_ been wondering since this morning – then... fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine, we can... we can make something of this. Whatever it is. But you have to be honest with me.”

“And you can be honest with me,” Dean says too quickly.

“Good. I'll start right now. You can be a right grumpy little wanker, and you need to learn to _smile_ more because life is good, Dean, and _you_ have good things in your life, and you have this stupid smile that makes me happy. Sometimes. When I'm not annoyed with you.”

Of course; because the sun shines when you smile. Dean nearly says this but he doesn't because it sounds stupid and sickly squeamish sweet, but in his head he thinks _hey, thanks, Brixton café waiter; maybe you had a point after all_.

He nods, nods again, and says, “Okay. Alright. Yes.” He doesn't deserve Aidan's kindness. He knows this. “Smiling more, I can do that. If that'll make you happy. Because I want to. Make you happy, I mean.”

“You will,” says Aidan, quietly. “We equal then?”

“Now that I know I'm a grumpy wanker?” says Dean. “I hope so. Aidan, I am sorry, you know.”

“I do know. You said that.”

“But I mean it.”

“I know. And _I_ meant it when I said you need to smile more, so stop looking so fucking worried and give us a grin, O'Gorman. And then a kiss. And then I think we'll be good.”

There it is. The option to fix it all, or begin to. Dean steps closer, tentatively, and they smile at each other like it's the first time, and then they kiss. It's slow and sweet and lasts for minutes. Their lips part with several smaller kisses, and Dean puts his head on Aidan's shoulder, taking in the smell of him, the lemon-smoke scent he's become so used to this summer.

“So,” says Aidan, pressing it into Dean's hair, dragging it out like something brand new will follow. Something good.

It might, Dean realises. Hey, it _could_.

This could be something wonderful.


	12. Epilogue

**One year later**

In a flat in Camberwell, Dean O'Gorman lies on his back, warmed by the man who is sprawled next to him, snoring for England.

Dean turns to look at Aidan, his face in profile, slumped against the pillow. His mouth is hanging open like a puppy. Dean nudges his foot, and Aidan stirs. Rolls on to his front, flings out an arm. Falls back to sleep. Dean finds his hand under the sheets and gives it a quick squeeze, and two sleepy brown eyes begin to flicker.

Aidan blinks slowly for a little while, drowsy like a sun-drenched cat, squinting as he always does at the stark whiteness of the bedroom. He isn't allowed to complain; the white was Aidan's idea, after all. Minimalist, he said it'd be. Very metropolitan. It looks more like a doctor's office, but the tins of duck egg blue are still sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be opened. They haven't got around to re-painting yet.

“Mm, mornin',” Aidan mumbles when he sees Dean’s awake. His voice is like sandpaper. No surprise really: they were up late drinking in the lounge with their shirts off and the windows thrown wide yesterday, waiting for midnight.

“Good morning, Sleepy,” says Dean, reaching to card his fingers through Aidan's curls. He watches those sleep-hazy eyes light in memory.

“It's your birthday!”

“It is.”

“Thirty-one, eh?”

“Mhm.”

“And you don't look a day over thirty.”

“Oh Aid, we've talked about this. You've already wooed me, you don't need to keep trying.”

Aidan grins and leans to kiss him. “Happy birthday, babe.” He props himself up on one elbow, looking thoughtful. “So I s'pose you'll be wanting your present...”

“What? Aidan, I thought we agreed everything was going into the auction this year. You haven't gone and _bought_ something, have you?”

Aidan rolls his eyes. “Way to ruin my smooth talking moment, Deano. Now don't go being deliberately obtuse or you won't get anything.”

Admittedly, it takes a little while for Aidan to pluck up the strength – he feels the need to stretch four more times, click his back and yawn so widely it's a wonder his jaw doesn't lock – but eventually he rolls back on to his stomach and shimmies down the length of the bed beneath the covers till he's merely a shape in the sheets, and Dean throws his head back against the pillow in bliss and thinks that, really, this isn't too bad a start to his thirty-first year.

It does, however, mean they're almost late to the auction house.

“What if it's not there anymore?” Dean asks on the bus journey there, knee jigging up and down with nerves. It reeks of stale chewing gum and piss, and he thinks he could very well throw up, all over the Asda bags sitting in the luggage rack. The woman in the seat across from them is looking at him warily, as though she thinks he's about to flip. Hell, he might.

“It will be,” Aidan says calmly, peering out the window. It's a gorgeous, peaceful July day. A jarring clash to Dean's restless mind.

“But what if it's not?”

“It's a house, Dean, it ain't goin' anywhere.”

“I _mean_ what if it's been pulled out of the auction?”

“Why would it have been?”

“I don't know, if an offer's been made on it already?”

“It's a repo, there's no individual vendor to accept a prior offer.”

“Alright, well, what if someone outbids us?”

Aidan looks across at him. “With Richard's budget? Dean, you know how far he's willing to go for this place. He wants this just as much as you do.”

“You want it too, right?”

“Bit late to ask that now, darling.”

“Seriously, Aidan,” says Dean, starting to panic now. “Please tell me if you don't want to do this. It's a lot of money. I know Richard's certain we can make a profit, but it might be a while – six months, maybe even more before we can sell, or even rent depending on the market, and that'd be an even _slower_ return. Then there's the cost of materials...”

Aidan leans across to press the red button, and the bus draws up at the stop a street before the showy cricket club where the auction's being held. He takes Dean's hand while they wait for the people going past them to get off. His fingers are strong, though Dean's are shaking.

“Cool it, Deano,” he says quietly, giving his hand a quick squeeze.

When they get off the bus he doesn't separate their hands, even though a bloke getting off the bus throws them a funny look. Their arms swing slightly as they walk along the sunkissed pavement, Aidan almost dragging Dean along with him like a parent hauling an anxious toddler to the doctor.

“Listen,” says Aidan, “this is your project. This is your _dream_. But that doesn't mean I'm not up for it too.”

“Are you sure?”

Aidan stops right there in the street so fast Dean almost falls into him. He swings round so they're facing each other, bringing Dean in for a quick kiss.

“Sure as sure can be, dopey. Who else is gonna be your painter and tea-maker and resident ripper-outer of things, hm? Exactly. No one. We're a team, you and me. Don't you forget it. Now come on or they'll start without us.”

They don't, as it happens. The auction room's already bustling, a mixture of tetchy looking couples in fleeces and high-flying businessmen with mobile phones. It's only the press of Aidan's steadying hand against the small of his back that pushes Dean forward, and he glances round and round until he spots Richard over on the left side of the room, towards the front. He told Dean well in advance that this is where he would be; apparently the front is the best place to sit at an auction because you don't have to see whichever snarling beast you're bidding against.

Next to Richard is a tall man, handsome with a broad, white smile, straight from a Colgate commercial and, next to _him_ , Adam is nattering away, nose in one of the property catalogues, wondering aloud to Graham which house they should buy. Graham says they're not buying _any_ of them, thank you very much. They've only come for the vintage pub collection being sold later on in the morning. They're having the wedding reception at their house – no blueberry baby venison canapés or string quartets this time, just lots of booze and a summery iPod shuffle – and they want to scrub up an old, classy bar for it. A proper one.

Adam lights up when he sees Dean.

“Happy birthday!” he sings, dumping the catalogue on the floor, standing up and throwing skinny arms around him. “God, old age suits you. Lucky bastard. Hiya, Aidan.”

Everyone budges their chairs back to let Aidan and Dean sidestep along the row and sit down next to each other, Adam on Aidan's left and Richard on Dean's right, holding both of them snugly in the pack like a safe cocoon. Dean's manic heart rate begins to ease slightly.

“Nervous?” Richard smiles, drumming his own fingers against his knees. He's wearing a lovely button-up and smart trousers, and Dean suddenly feels like a wreck for arriving in jeans.

“A little,” he says. “You?”

“Excited. I really think this one's ours.”

“Yeah?”

“I can feel it.” Falling back into love has made Richard beautifully positive. It suits him, along with this trim little beard he's been sporting lately.

“It's a gorgeous place,” says Dean, and it is: five-bed Georgian terrace, segment-headed windows and a south-facing garden; somewhat shabby and overgrown but potentially spectacular. Remarkable interior joinery indicative of a high status of the original occupant. That's what Aidan's most excited about. He's itching to get to the library, says he can't _wait_ to get to the heart of the place. Dean's just excited about getting the floorboards in that double-aspect drawing room restored.

A sudden hush settles over the room as the auctioneer walks in to introduce himself, and Dean straightens up in his chair. Quietly, Richard says, “I hope this renovation will be the first of many for us, Dean,” and Dean turns and smiles at him, calmer now, and says, “I'm sure it will.” Then they shake hands like partners.

Aidan takes his other hand, holding it down between them, and runs his thumb over Dean's. “So? How's it feel to be living the dream?”

Adam hears this and grins. Then he promptly frowns upon noticing Graham is practically falling asleep and rolls his eyes, giving him a quick, fortifying nudge. On Dean's other side Richard and Lee are quiet but comfortably so, sharing a copy of the auctioneer's catalogue, held between them like a cherished photo album.

And Dean sits in the midst of it all, breathes in the hopeful old wood smell of the place, squeezes Aidan's hand, gives him a smile. How does it feel? It feels good. Better than. Amazing.

End


End file.
